This book isn’t about tidying things up. It’s about values and happiness. Just keep the stuff that really makes you happy, i.e., that provides your life with meaning.
The search for meaning is eternal and yet something seems to have gone wrong. People seem to be terribly confused about what makes them happy and what can provide them with meaning over the long haul. For example, one point that I know is of value is the adage: less is more. Minimalism is, I think, fundamental for meaning and happiness. What that means to each person is something that each person needs to define within their personal context.
The KonMari movement provides many with a roadmap for exactly what that means. Asking the question of whether items in one's life bring you joy is, I believe, is essential for achieving true meaning or happiness - in terms of reducing stress, and just knowing that the stuff that is around you is terribly valued. The deliberateness of her method - the thinking deeply about how objects can be used and interacted with humanely - is extremely valuable.
I'm very much interested in the concept of hedonic adaptation and how that relates to our desire to fill our lives with stuff. The idea that we are never satisfied with what we have is, on the one hand, a good thing, because that drives us to become and do more. Yet, when that drive pushes us to be less deliberate or where having things pushes us out of the present in the present and we find ourselves desperately looking to the future where some object will enable our happiness.
This book made me think of Ray Dalio's Principles book - that is the connection between savouring life and making an impact. I'm now starting to see that many people are not able to make an impact or better, don't really know how they can make an impact and that emptiness leads to anti-minimalism.
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