Do you believe in magic?
Book Review: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying by Marie Kondo
This is not your ordinary review.
Before this book I’d never heard of Marie Kondo or the KonMari method. Oh, how quickly life can change…
My first encounter with all things ‘life-changing’ was three years ago in Kinokuniya New York. I was on my way to meet a friend at Bryant Park when the shelves of my favourite Japanese bookstore lured me in! What is a visit to NYC without a little retail therapy?
It was here that I fell upon Sarah Knight’s The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck. Knight’s book made me giggle out loud. The few chapters I read in store were provocative and joyful (oh the irony!).
A girl standing close by explained it was a parody of Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying. ‘Marie who?’ I thought to myself. The girl recommended I buy Knight’s book over Kondo’s (but this only made me want to read the original KonMari story more!). “Marie Kondo is batshit crazy”, the girl added as if she could read my thoughts. Sorry Sarah (and random stranger) but I’ll take authentic craziness over imitation satire any day!
Now, like most bibliophiles, my TBR (to-be-read) pile is ever-growing. So, whilst it took almost 12 months for this book to reach the top of the pile, I finally added Marie Kondo to my reading repertoire.
And my verdict: I loved this book.
I loved it so much I decided to write a review about it in the hope you will read it and love it too!
And thanks to my introduction via Knight’s parody I am less concerned (translation: no f*cks are given) whether you do or not. I just want it to be known that Kondo scores five stars from me!
In short, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying is a game changer.
Reading this book elevates you from the ordinary to the extraordinary. That is, before reading the book you don’t know what you don’t know. But, after reading the book, you know, and you can never go back to unknowing (aka a literary ‘what has been seen, cannot be unseen’ meme).
At the risk of coming across esoteric, it was one of those books you read, and then want everyone around you to read, so that you can discuss how you will live your soon-to-be (new and improved) decluttered and organised life!
You may have heard about the tagline ‘Does this spark joy?’. But the KonMari method is much more than a question of what to keep and what to throw away.
“The question of what you want to own is actually the question of how you want to live your life” - Marie Kondo
Kondo challenges us to audit who we are by what we have. She advocates developing an appreciation for the space we live in and the things that surround us.
I have always been a big believer that space matters. Intentional or not, space is the body language of our physical environment. That is, a space reflects the priorities of the person or people within it.
“The space in which we live should be for the person we are becoming now, not for the person we were in the past” - Marie Kondo
I’ll admit Kondo is unconventional. Is she ‘batshit crazy’? No. Eccentric? Yes. Before this book I never thought I would be having conversations with furniture or giving consideration to the feelings of my apparel! And, yes I giggled. But, I also gave it a go. Spoiler alert — the more unconventional the method, the more magic!
On the surface Kondo poses as a magician. Sharing anecdotes about clients with outrageous shoe collections, or who stockpile toilet paper, and unveiling how her magical tidying tricks helped them to live better lives. But, on a deeper level, she delivers a provocation against consumerist culture.
Kondo exposes our society’s unhealthy relationship between ‘stuff’ and happiness. She explains how our attachment to the past and fears about the future are intertwined in the things we own (and ultimately affect every aspect of our lives). Advertisers work hard to feed the fallacy that acquiring more stuff leads to a more meaningful life. Yet, we know the reality is, more stuff only leads to more stress. Kondo teaches us that every time we have to search for something in amongst the clutter we are causing unnecessary suffering. By making the conscious decision to tidy (and let go) we reduce suffering from the stress of looking and not finding!
“Life becomes far easier once you know that things will still work out even if you are lacking something” - Marie Kondo
What I loved most about this book is that Kondo is honest about the fact tidying is not the purpose of life, but a (magical) purposeful method for living.
In questioning how I wanted to live my life I was forced to question what might happen to all the stuff I own now if I were to die tomorrow (morbid I know!). Would my sister want my clothes? Would my friends care for my furniture? Would my Mum file my paperwork? All very unlikely.
More than anything, in facing my mortality, I questioned if it was fair to place the burden of facing my possessions on the people I loved the most?
Fortunately Kondo gently reminds us of our power to choose when we face our possessions:
“There are three approaches we can take towards our possessions. Face them now, face them sometime, or avoid them until the day we die. The choice is ours.” - Marie Kondo
This was my life-changing moment: choice. Everything is a choice. And everything in life is a reflection of the choices we make. Including whether or not we want to believe in magic!
