Allow Things to "Spark Joy"

A common practice among minimalists or declutter-ers today is to follow the KonMari method, at least to some extent. The KonMari method was developed by Japanese tidying expert Marie Kondo and was popularized through her 2010 book “The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up.” Among some of her “radical” ideas are to remove everything from a space, to tidy by category rather than location and, perhaps the thing that confuses many people, is to only keep things that “Spark Joy.”

The spark joy principle (as well as the concept of thanking items before discarding them) are where many people doing the KonMari method begin to scratch their heads. They opt to substitute “sparking joy” for “love it or use it” or break down the list into even more pragmatic criteria like “have I used it in the last 6 months?” While the essence of deciding what to keep, as opposed to choosing what to get rid of, is still intact using this pragmatic approach, decluttering according to which objects “spark joy” is, I think, much more valuable than people realize. Additionally, the notion of thanking an item for its service prior to discarding it may seem a bit bizarre to western audiences (my socks don’t have feelings!) but it also has a very valuable concept behind it.

In the 2015 documentary Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things, the Minimalists Ryan Nicodemus and Joshua Fields Millburn say that in today’s society we are simultaneously too materialistic and not materialistic enough. Essentially, we are addicted to accumulating more, newer, bigger better things but we rarely appreciate what went into making the items nor do we appreciate what the items do for us or allow us to do.

The essence of Marie Kondo’s “Spark Joy” concept and of thanking the objects we are about to discard rests in gratitude. Practicing gratitude and appreciation for the things surrounding us allows us to acknowledge the attachment we have to our possessions and, for the ones we are about to discard, to find closure before we discard them.

Pragmatic decision making is certainly an easier, less emotionally taxing way of decluttering, but I would argue that at the end of it, the joy and pleasure that comes from a tidy house slowly depletes and we once again fall into a trap of consuming in order to satisfy something deeper. When we rely on pragmatic decision-making to choose what we will keep and what we will discard we deprive many of our objects and ourselves of the joy and gratitude that comes from the simple act of owning and using our things. And once we have decluttered, if we are not constantly, intentionally asking ourselves our pragmatic list of questions, our emotions will inevitably, on occasion, get the best of us and we give in to buying something we do not need, or really even want. While Marie Kondo’s gratitude-based practices may cause emotions to bubble up in the moment or cause us to feel exhausted at the end of the day, they also allow us to appreciate and accept the present and allow us to hold onto that feeling long after we’ve finished tidying.

Imagine you are decluttering your collection of cooking utensils. You cook not because you enjoy it, but because it’s a necessity. Some days cooking may even feel like an absolute drag. There are two ways to proceed. The first, perhaps the simpler way, is pragmatically. You look at all your utensils and decide, with logic, which ones you use and which one you don’t. You discard the ones you don’t use; reorganize the ones you do. Then you can enjoy a tidier kitchen. Maybe you even enjoy cooking in that kitchen for a while. But slowly cooking will become a drag again and you will start to seek out new utensils that make it less of a hassle… until, one day, you are back where you started—in a cluttered kitchen. Our pragmaticism may limit how often we feel the need to purchase new items, but pragmatics alone cannot quench the emotional desire to buy when we are, deep down, dissatisfied.

Alternatively, you can throw pragmatics out the window. Get emotional. You don’t really like cooking, but which of your utensils make it less annoying? Those are the ones that “spark joy.” Keep those ones. The ones that don’t, thank them for their attempted service and pass them on. Enjoy your tidy kitchen. But from there, and this is the key to avoid returning to clutter, allow yourself to truly enjoy using the utensils you have kept. Relish in the simplicity of cooking with them, even if it is simply the feeling of holding a wooden spoon and letting time slow down a bit. This joy, this simple appreciation, will last you much longer than the high from a tidied kitchen. You are now living and using these utensils with gratitude. And the next time you enter a store that tries to tempt you with the newest kitchen gadgets, you won’t feel compelled to buy anything because you have gratitude and joy from what you already own.

Slowing down and allowing yourself to feel gratitude in your life is a much better, more intuitive, method of resisting buying things than any amount of pragmatic reasoning. You may be able to logic your way out of buying something, saying that what you own is “good enough” etc. but you will still feel just a little dissatisfied at the end of the day. Instead, allowing yourself to experience simple joy from the things you own, even those items that, on the service, seem like very logical, utile items, will allow you to go through life with a sense of gratitude for even the smallest things. “Good enough” becomes “good,” and isn’t that a better way to live?