I have already written about Netflix’s Tidying up with Marie Kondo before. For me it was a refreshing show and I learnt a lot about how to manage storage space in terms of how to fold tops, fitted sheets, socks etc. etc. My wardrobe now looks great and tidy and I hope to maintain this state of joy for the longest I could.
However, we are living in a world that every popular thing will at some point invite backlashes. The surge of articles on the Internet, including newspaper columns and blogs against the concept of decluttering because of only keeping things that ‘Spark Joy’ have flooded my screen space in the last two weeks. Clearly, keeping life simple and decluttered is not something that everyone is into.
A lot of those articles were attacking Marie Kondo’s idea of ‘sparking joy’ because not everything needs to spark joy as they reflect who they are and who they once were. Some said it is about how you want to present yourself as a person through what you have in your house (or maybe also stuff you stocked up in the darkest corners of your garage). It is not just about sparking joy but being and reflecting who you are as a person. And that principle applies to all items across the board from clothing, to books and konomos etc.
For me I found these attacks quite amusing. My feeling was – if you don’t like Marie Kondo’s idea just don’t follow it. Decluttering had certainly helped people in the show, so what’s a big deal if that didn’t apply to you. I don’t watch reality dating shows but I won’t go on an all-out war against people who believed contestants could really find true love on those shows.
Decluttering is a lifestyle, not a rigid regiment in life. I once kept a lot of things because of sentimental reasons. But moving from country to country and houses to houses in the last 17 years made me realised that I have been burdening myself with expired sentiments and overloading excess baggage. That’s when I started to get ruthless on my personal possessions. Last time when I moved house I found out there were things in my garage that I have kept for 8 years in boxes without opening them at all. But I have to take them with me because I am moving. That’s when I made the decision of inviting a good friend who knows me very well, and asked her to go through all those and other boxes for me. I knew if I did it myself they will just be back into the garage or storage. I told her a simple rule – if she thinks I don’t need them, don’t even ask me or tell me about the contents, just throw them. This exercise helped me cleared out a lot of junks that I don’t even know what they were but had never thought about revisiting.
When I decided to renovate my place, I needed to pack and move to a temporary location so my place can be, well renovated. This is when I noticed that there are a lot of things I thought defining who I am became things that I just kept for no reasons. I suddenly realised that I have been depending on objects to tell me who I am (or maybe to impress others with those ‘wow you got this?’) and stop focusing on living as who I am. I went through another series of culling and decluttering. I donated a lot of books and DVDs to the local libraries and schools, depending on the nature of those items, discarded a lot of clothes that were no longer my size (I couldn’t believe I was once that skinny – like 27” waistline?) and removed a lot of household items that I have never, and will never use. I set up a table outside my garage and placed two huge boxes of household items, either new or mildly used and put a note telling people to take them if they need them. I got rid of about one and a half box during the process. And the funny thing is I have never revisited the remaining items in the box in the garage as apparently I don’t need any of those. I will probably ask the local council to take away all the remaining items in the garage at the end of this year as now I imposed a strictly – if not used in two years, they have to go rule.
For me living a simpler and more lightweight life allows me to focus more on how I want to live my life instead of looking at things or worrying about things that are taking up my physical space. That gives me peace and ‘sparks joy’. If decluttering doesn’t spark joy for you then it is not something for you. Maybe you enjoy clutters and clutters spark joy for you. As Marie Kondo emphasised and demonstrated, giving things away are not just about tossing them out, she reiterated the importance of appreciating those items and what they meant to you in your life before letting them go. And I think personally, this is the beauty of her methodology. I am not as forgiving as she is when it comes to that but her approach did trigger me to revisit things I still have and started using them more to understand what they meant to me (yes, if I don’t feel anything anymore from them, they are going).
So there is no need to go up in arms against decluttering or Marie Kondo herself. The fear you created for yourself against Marie Kondo and her decluttering lifestyle is unwarranted if you truly believe in what you believe in. And there is no concrete wall between how you want to live your live as to how others want to live a decluttered life.
