Have any of the nearly 6 million people who have purchased the Marie Kondo book The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up actually 1- finished reading the book and 2- successfully completed the extreme tidying, or more accurately purging, outlined in the book? If so and you happen to be reading this please contact me, you are my idol! I bought the book on a whim in my neighborhood bookstore one grey December day during the height of clutter season. It called out to me from the shelf as if it were my destiny to happen upon this life-changing bible of order. But first I had to get through the holidays. In earnest I began reading it, my skepticism giving way to enthusiasm. Temporary piles that had become permanent fixtures would be banished. My closet would be a curated collection of choice pieces and my drawers would open and close with ease. I found myself enthusiastically espousing the joys of clutter free living at parties, despite the fact that post holiday clutter was at an all time high at home. Once things calmed down at work in February I would enter the promise land.
Now it’s August and I’m still the not so proud owner of too many things that do not bring me joy. For the uninitiated, the Maria Kondo method in a nutshell is to handle every object in your home, broken down by category, and ask does it bring you joy. If it doesn’t you toss it. Fine in theory but most of my possessions fall into a grey area and very few actually give me joy.
Now don’t get the wrong idea, I’m not a hoarder or even a pack rat. I’m constantly purging, though stuff is immediately replaced with newer stuff. I call it crap management but it’s not enough. Now with summer coming to a close I’ve set a new deadline for my purge-a-thon. Yes sir, as soon as September hits I’m on it and I will document it here to make it official. Now if I could only find the book…
