If you are anything like me, then you would know that keeping your room neat and organized is actually hard work. Both of my parents are neat and organized, but it seems as if the gene skipped a generation. It seems no matter how hard I try, stuff just always piles up, and I am always misplacing something that I desperately need.
When New Year's rolled around, I set out to be more conscious of the things that I was buying and cluttering my room with. I love shopping and buying new things, but at some point there needs to be a time where you say enough is enough. Having six deodorants or body lotions isn't necessary, and neither is having 27 tubes of lipstick that were all strikingly similar.
I love reading blogs, and it seemed as if everyone was reading this magical book by Marie Kondo; it even came up in conversation with my boss! In this situation, I did what anyone with an Amazon account would do: I ordered the "Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up" and promptly received it two days later. Thanks, Amazon Prime!
As soon as the book came, I got to reading and quickly realized that this book wasn't all it was cracked up to be. While it did inspire me to go through the moving boxes from my dorm room in Chicago and clear out the junk that I was straight-up hoarding, it really just made me anxious.
Her whole "method," which she calls the "KanMari" method, was to throw out everything that didn't spark joy. She gave all of these weird anecdotes about cleaning out her bag every single night, and thanking mundane items for their service. There aren't any pictures in this book, but I could only imagine her house resembling a doctor's office: neat, sterile and devoid of anything personal.
Every night after I would read a chapter in this book, I would lay awake for hours and feel as if all of the stuff in my room was closing in on me, or how I was a horrible person for accumulating all of this unnecessary stuff in the first place. It wasn't exactly a good feeling.
The book wasn't all bad, but it promoted a lot of bad behavior in regards to the way I was thinking. Yes, it did help me realize that I should try to stop buying things that I don't need, but it also promoted me to throw away stuff that could actually be donated to someone who needs it, which is downright stupid! (I didn't follow that advice, but someone might!)
It made me too anxious for my own good, which is not a positive thing. No one should be made to feel bad for holding onto things with memories, if that is what they choose to do. My room has character because of all of the things I have collected or I have been given, and that is completely normal.
Obviously I am returning this book, because even having it around gives me hives. Thanks Marie Kondo, but no thanks!
