In Praise of Stuff

Observations, Thinking

I was all up in the Kon Mari thing last year, but these are the questions I ask myself now about stuff:

• Would I buy this again today?

• If I threw this away, would I need to spend money I don’t have right now to replace it with something better?

For me, those are better decluttering questions than “Does this spark joy?” Because if you’re not going through a joyful period, but you’re feeling industrious, you can find yourself in an echoey room with no couch. I may not feel joyful about my couch, but I need to sit down, and I don’t have a spare thousand dollars in my account.

Yes. I’ll sometimes buy subpar things because I need them. Then I just tell myself “Well, if I find the perfect, most beautiful tablespoon measures later, ones that make me feel like dancing in the rain, and I can afford them, I’ll get those and give these to someone else. But tonight I am baking cookies.”

I don’t need less stuff to be happy. I just maybe need to mop more.

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4 thoughts on “In Praise of Stuff”

  2. Yes! Just the other day I was telling someone how I still missed the perfectly fine gray sweatshirt I got rid of in my Konmari purge 18 months ago and only because it was 95 degrees in my house that day and it looked horrible. And so this past weekend I bought another (for cheap at a consignment store, so).

    I will offer another filtering question, which works for clothes at least: “Would I pay $75 for this piece?” (Anything north of $75 feels really expensive to me. You choose your own price.) This helps me weed out what looks like a good deal but is simply on sale or super cheap to begin with and not up to my quality standards.

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  4. Yes, this exactly.

    I *hate* cooking, but I am a SAHM & have to feed these people every night because we can’t afford to eat out 7 days a week. Very little in the kitchen gives me “joy” – but it is all mostly necessary at one time or another. 🙂

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