A friend and I are going chapter by chapter through the book It’s Not Your Money by Tosha Silver. We had both read it before, but not one chapter a week as the author suggests. There’s a very important section in the book where the author talks about getting rid of clutter. Casting out the old to make room for the new. Tosha implied that by the time we finished the chapter, we’d know exactly where to begin. The first time I read the book, the words “business cards” popped into my head for no apparent reason.
I immediately opened a drawer and pulled out an enormous envelope and two binders full of business cards I’d collected over 30 years. Many were wrapped in rubber bands and labeled according to the events at which I’d gathered them. I started removing rubber bands and throwing each pile into my recycling box, and as I did, I felt lighter and lighter and then downright giddy. When I was done, I danced my little box upstairs and dumped it into my big recycling bin, grinning as those cards fanned out across the can in a rainbow of colors. I closed the lid behind me.
See, those cards had been weighing on me in all kinds of ways. Serving as a reminder of people I should have contacted and never did, and people I did connect with but the communication didn’t go well, and people who never contacted me back, and people I don’t even recall in the slightest. The fact is, in this…
