Weres Wanna Know: When is it Okay to Let Books Go?

The end of 2019 was a doozie for me. I made some pretty major changes in my life; the biggest of which was starting a new job teaching high school. I inherited a classroom that had been occupied by the same teacher for almost 30 years. And my classroom was filled with the clutter and detritus that reflected that. I've spent the majority of the last six months trying to get it into some semblance of order and I've found that I've carried that attitude into other aspects of my life.

I've blogged several times about how stressful having a large unread physical TBR is for me but also on how I felt like I needed to have that stash of unread books. I have this total irrational fear that I'm going to run out of books to read and there will be no way I'll be able to get more if I don't get them right now. Which is kind of a messed up way to be thinking.

A couple of weeks ago I took a good look at my personal library and realized that I owned a ton of books that I was never going to read. They were taking up a lot of space. I have books I bought back in 2009 that I haven't even touched except to move them across the country four times. So I started to pull books off my shelves that very day. Every time I put a book in the donation pile, I felt guilty. I spent money on this because there was a time I was super excited to read this book. Why was I not excited any more?

I bought a lot of the older books I have on my TBR at a time where I was looking to expand what I was reading and because a lot of them were the really popular and hyped books at the time. I have no interest in most them now. My reading tastes have changed and I have a good idea now the kinds of books I want to read. It took a few pep talks and enlisting the help of my sister to help me haul them, but I culled over 135 books from my shelves and a good number of those were unread TBR books. I can honestly say now that I've gotten rid of them that I don't miss them at all. 

Part of my success in culling my shelves may be because I donated about 95% of them to the library in the high school I teach at because we're a small school with an equally small book budget. I've gotten a lot of joy from seeing the students reading and loving those books I never made the time to read. It's been nice knowing that they are in a place where they're actually wanted and needed.

Want to know the best part? I now have lots of room on my shelves for books I actually want to have on my shelves. And I'm not as stressed over the amount of unread books on my shelves. As for the ones I was kind of still interested in? I actually own the ebooks for most of them so why was I still hanging on to the physical copy? There are a few more books/series that I know I should get rid of but I can't seem to let go of them yet.

How about you? When do you feel it's okay to get rid of books you know you're not going to read? Do you have any tips to help me become more motivated to get rid of those last few books?