I wanted to share this experience with you, guys. Sometime in spring, I came across a magical book “The life-changing magic of tidying” by Marie Kondo – a Japanese woman who makes money helping people to make their lives better by teaching them decluttering their homes.

Usually, when people hear of the title of this book they’re very sceptical like “what? a book about tidying and cleaning home? Can this actually be taught?”. But this book is very special because for KonMari, as she calls herself, tidying is not just putting things in order and/or getting rid of unnecessary stuff. She actually tells that this is the whole philosophy of keeping only the things that spark joy, things that you really love and use or really going to use. She says that before starting you have to ask and think and answer these questions:

1. What was it that motivated you to tidy in the first place?
2. What do you hope to gain through tidying?
3. What is the ideal lifestyle you dream of? Make notes.  Visualize it as if you already there.
4. Why do you want to live like that? For each answer ask yourself the question why about 5 times. This way you can understand what you really want
5. NB from me – think positive. Think of what you want, not what you don’t want. Otherwiseб you will never know what it is that makes you happy.

This book, actually, made me dig even deeper. I started to think that I want to get rid of everything I don’t need in my life, including people. But, I must tell you and warn you that this is a completely wrong idea I have in my head! This is not what KonMari teaches!

А few days ago I decided to throw a garage sale party. And yesterday in the afternoon I finally started tossing my clothes. I’ve collected a huge pile of things I don’t like. But only after midnight, when I started writing in my diary (it is actually a great thing to do regularly!) I realized that I’ve almost done a huge mistake! I am thinking wrong! I have to think positive, not negative. So eventually I came to the conclusion that what I want is to have people and things that make me happy, that help me to become a better me, that motivate me. I won’t describe my ideal lifestyle here – I’ll get bored writing it and it isn’t the point of this writing but if you are interested, let me know in the comments and I’ll do it for. I just want to say that the questions appeared to be quite difficult and I’m still not sure whether I have answered them fully with enough details cuz the image of myself in my head is still quite blurred and not clear. And after 3 hours of choosing the things I want to keep I’m feeling quite tired actually.

Also, I want to say that asking myself the questions above made me think of more existential questions like What are the people in my life? What roles do they play? When can I call a person my friend? What people do I want in my life? And: What are my strengths and weaknesses? How do I use them effectively?

I, as well, have realized that I need more structure in my life and this is one of the reasons that made me start tidying. I want to be more effective and reach my high goals.

That’s all for now. Later I’m gonna write my experience after I’ve put the things I need back where they have to belong.