Konmari-ed
The is this old TV series called ‘Gilmore Girls’ about three Gilmore women - a mother, a daughter and her grandmother; and their complicated relationships. It is one of my favorites, but hard to say why. Not that it is relevant here either. How it is relevant to the topic at hand is that this is where I heard of Marie Kondo and her book. I had heard a friend mention it in passing earlier. But it struck me when Grandma Gilmore was using her method to toss away stuff that did not spark joy. The striking bit here is that she had led her whole adult life as the perfect high-society wife to a rich businessman and was big on family pride and social status. And in a recent revival of this series, there she was, a grieving widow, turning her whole, carefully put-together home upside down and ruthlessly throwing most of her things away because they did not bring her joy anymore. It seemed like a natural course for her grief to take. So I was seeing some psychological backing to the Konmari method.
That got me to try it out too. Nothing big, just baby steps. Being a hoarder who can’t let go of even a tenth of her useless possessions that only leads to lack of space and consequent clutter and chaos, nothing more than baby steps would have been advisable. But if Grandma Gilmore could do it, so could I. I cleared out one drawer in my Chest of Drawers. And it felt like when Harry Potter found his wand. I felt a halo around my head and a glow in my heart. I have always found cleaning to be meditative. But so is letting go of things you have not used in ages, apparently.
Then I found out that my sister was also into the Konmari method. She, in fact, had Konmari-ed the heck out of her house. She mentioned that her sister-in-law swears by it too. And the list kept growing…
You wouldn’t think it is such a big deal when you watch Tidying up on Netflix, where the perky, petite Ms. Kondo walks into a family’s home, waves her magic wand and they live in a clutter-free home, happily ever after. (There is of course, a lot of hard work between her walking into the house and leaving it all super organized.) Yet, it is a TV show after all, and you take it with a grain of salt. But in all fairness, it actually helps. And with the Japanese claims to this idea before Marie Kondo made it so popular, I’m going to thank them both. They do know what they’re talking about.
Once you organize your stuff based on this method, everything you need is right in front of your eyes. You don’t have to waste hunting for stuff. Helps you start your day better and saves a lot of time in life.
Even better, you feel great. It is very comforting to see order and cleanliness all around you. It calms your mind and frees up a lot of space in there to focus on other things.
And the calmer you get, you want to hold on to all that order and lack of clutter. So it gives you an incentive to persevere. Which makes it a self-sustaining habit. And that is pretty amazing. So get going with some smart hoarding.