The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up
That we live in a world of plenty where having too much stuff can actually be a problem is strange. That we live in a world where there are books about how to reduce the amount of stuff we have is, perhaps, stranger. But I too am susceptible to the pressures of modern society and the consumerism epidemic that seems to have fully infected daily life. Marie Kondo’s book piqued my interest as a kind of antidote to all of that.
In the simplest reading, the book describes straightforward tactics to eliminate the unnecessary crap that we tend to accumulate. For me though, the book was a call to live in the present. Kondo notes late in the book that there are two reasons we hold on to things: one, to maintain a connection to the past and two, to prepare for uncertainty in the future. But we exist in the present. No number of mementos will bring us back to past happy experiences and no amount of stockpiling will prepare us for all possible futures. Don’t let the accumulation of material things trick you into believing those things are possible.