I trashed a 123 year old book… with words that were printed three generations ago.
Tossed out with the weekly trash.
My voice inside was shouting…
“SACRILEGE, CHRIS! … HOW COULD YOU?”
That’s because… for years I’ve had my own “no book should every be thrown away” philosophy.
It was based on… umm… nothing more that a vague “it doesn’t feel quite right” kind of thing.
But…
Sometimes the trashcan is the most sensible place for books.
I’ve thrown them out before. Even much newer ones. Because they were SO bad that no other human being should be subjected to the torture of reading them.
And it’s not like I’m throwing away the very last copy in the world.
I’m getting to the point of thinking about printed books like the things I print out for convenient reading…
It’s all just words printed on paper pages.
Throwing them away doesn’t remove the ideas from the world.
It’s just the copy I have that’s no longer needed.
And… before I get any hate mail — which I do rather enjoy — I’ve only ever thrown away 0.01% of the books I’ve ever owned. The others I still have. Or have given away.
Here’s why this particular one met its maker by my ruthless hand:
- It was in extremely poor condition — beyond repair in fact.
- Missing front and back covers. Plus many pages from front and back.
- Silverfish had been dining out in style.
- There are plenty more copies of it in the world. And some excellent digital facsimiles.
It also has a very small audience. Being about Scottish Martyrs… it wasn’t everyone’s favorite bedtime reading!
So, even if it was intact… it would be very hard finding a new home for it.
Reality is… even for some very old things that seem too old to throw away… they’re just worn out and no good anymore.
Everything eventually reaches its end of life
Things in our businesses too.
It could be the logo thrown together using Canva when just starting out. But now it doesn’t represent our brand well.
Maybe it’s the copy we originally wrote for our website. But reading it now… we just cringe.
So… out it goes.
Sometimes it’s just time to get something new… because the old has done its day.
It’s one reason I like writing daily email… because it’s writing something new and fresh for my business — every day.
And I don’t feel I need to keep hold of them forever… just in case.
Because if an email is read by my subscribers only once… and never again… then it’s still done its job. 😄
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EmailForTheWin.com
Chris Milham