Do you know what's sadness? For twenty years, I saved all my college course notes and textbooks. Two and a half college degrees: that's a lot of paper. Worse, I carried them around — and trust me; they weren't light — on at least seven moves(搬迁). Yet I never once looked at them.

They sat in our basement(地下室), covered in a thick layer of dust. If books and papers could wonder, they'd wonder why they were still under our stairs after all those years. What were my plans for them? When would the Big Day come? Well, the Big Day eventually did arrive — only it was different than expected. My wife, always more accepting of change than I am, finally convinced me to recycle the entire mess. The pain I experienced was also unexpected. I didn't feel nostalgia(怀旧), or suffer pains for long-lost magical moments of my education. No, what hurt was to come across those terrible papers I'd written, reminders of poor study habits, immaturity(幼稚), and an embarrassing lack of comprehension.

Thank goodness,I won't have to lug those dusty, dirty things on our next move. But what really happened was a purging(清除) of personal history. At first I struggled with this. The truth is in the record — my books, my notes, and my papers were primary source materials, documenting an important time in my life. To trash them was to trash the truth.

What I've learned since taking this leap is that the lesson is more important than the truth. I feel as if much of my real education has been a direct reaction to killing time during my college years. The lessons aren't in the documents—they're now in me. So I was glad to free myself of this physical burden and the mental one too: I don't need to relive the painful moments, as the lessons have now sunk in.

You might want to consider doing something similar.