While I tend not to read many books on the bestseller list, I was intrigued by a lot of what I was hearing about Marie Kondo's The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I read it in just a few short days, and in large part it lived up to the hype. Yet I had two criticisms of the book, the first of which was that the idea of speaking to your possessions, including thanking items you are about to part with for their role in your life, seems like a bit of nonsense. Kondo believes that one's possessions have energy, and sending positive energy their way will result in your belongings supporting you in turn. She even, she writes, greets her home verbally at the end of the day. If it works for her, and for her clients, I cannot object to it, but it would feel strange in my own life. The larger criticism is that, while I appreciate her advocacy of decreasing clutter and being more mindful about your things, she barely touches on stemming the inflow of new possessions. Towards th...
Occasional author. Lover of coffee.