Taking Action Leads to Clarity

I have learned that the quickest path to clarity is to take action.

For the last four weeks I have been working on taking steps to launch Save-A-Tree-Books, a mobile used book store. This is the 90-day project I chose to work on at Follow Through Camp last month. It is the project I have been talking about at The Dreaming Café Community.

I registered Save-A-Tree-Books as a sole-proprietorship less than seven days after returning from Follow Through Camp. And, I have been brainstorming ideas to have my first sale. This weekend presented the first opportunity.

But, let me back up a little and give you a little background.

I’ve always loved books. My Dad loved books, too. In the last decade of his life he collected used, unwanted books and gave them away. He would collect them, sort them, and display them on special outdoor bookshelves he made. Every day that he was off from work, or on vacation and the summer he had an experimental chemo treatment at home, he would post a huge sign out in front of the house, “FREE Books.” His house was on a main road that led straight to the Jersey Shore. In the summer, thousands of people from NJ, PA and D\E would drive by and stop to pick up some free books. In his lifetime he rescued and gave away tens of thousands used books.

As an extension of my love of books and a way to honor my Father, I came up with the idea for Save-A-Tree-Books. But, although I could imagine what the warehouse size bookstore would look like, and could imagine hanging out there, I had no desire to own, or be tied to, a retail store.

At Follow Through Camp I had the idea to take Save-A-Tree-Books on the road, like the old Bookmobiles when I was a kid. I could avoid the whole retail store concept. I had fun brainstorming ways to sell books from a mobile unit, or to have mini-book sales seasonally or once a month. I even came up with a Netflix/library combo idea to rent books online via a monthly membership.

This weekend my sister’s neighborhood was having a community yard sale. I thought this would be a great way to get my feet wet and sell a few books. The added benefit, I would get to hang out with my sister and my nephews all day.

This is when I hit my first wall.

You see, I have been a book collector my whole life, and so has my husband. Adding to our own collections, I inherited most of my Dad’s books when he passed away. I have thousands of books. Most of them neatly packed away in boxes and stored in the basement. There are ten pallets of books to be exact in the basement. There’s not a lot of room to move or to sort books down there.

I have done no prep work to sort any of these books to get them ready to sell. With only a few days before the yard sale the task was overwhelming.

So, I decided to go ahead and hang out with my sister anyway, even though I had no books to sell. She had some books, so I could just pretend they were mine.

I arrived at 7am to help her set-up and for the next seven hours we hung out, greeted customers, answered questions and sold forty-dollars worth of toys, kids clothing and books.

I had a great day with my sister and my nephews. But, the day also gave me an opportunity to reflect deeply about what I really want and what I am doing.

Yesterday, June 14th, was my Dad’s birthday. He would have been sixty-eight-years-old. He died twelve years ago. I have been thinking a lot about him lately.

I have realized that rescuing used books was my Dad’s dream, not mine.

I love books, and I loved my Dad, but resurrecting his dream won’t bring him back. The best way I can honor him, is to honor myself, and my own dreams.

I love to write. I love to learn. I love connecting with people. I love helping and sharing what I’ve learned with others. My natural habit is at my desk writing. I enjoy connecting with people in small groups or one-on-one. I have a deep, heartfelt desire to help people and to make a difference.

Collecting, sorting, trading and selling books takes me away from all that I love to do.

I have to ask myself, “Do I want to spend the next 90-days trying to sell books and launch Save-A-Tree-Books or do I want to devote my time to writing and building The Dreaming Café?”

It’s hard to let go of something that’s been so close to my heart for so long.

If I hadn’t gone to Follow Through Camp and starting taking real action towards this dream, I would have never realized that it wasn’t my dream. It would have always hovered on the edge of everything I did like a shadow. It would have haunted me because I never gave it the attention that it deserved. Now that I have, now that I took action toward this dream, I can let it go and move on.

It’s hard. But, I think my Dad would understand, and actually be proud of me. He always was.