Japanese tidying up fairy Marie Kondo convinced us that if you hold an old, tattered sweater to your chest and don't feel a “spark of joy,” you should immediately throw it in the trash. And we did, Ukr.Media reports.
I too fell for this trap. At some point, it seemed to me that my life was a bit on the back burner just because there were skis on the balcony that no one had used since my mother's youth, and a tangle of cables from gadgets unknown to science were tangled in the desk drawer. The plan was as reliable as a Swiss watch: now I would throw all this visual noise into the trash, a vacuum would form in the apartment, and streams of cosmic energy, new career prospects, and mental balance would immediately pour into it.
The weekend passed in a fever. I methodically collected black bags. Everything fell under my hot hand: an old favorite cup, a stack of glamorous magazines from 2017, ridiculous but warm home pants and a bunch of little things that didn't seem to bring ecstatic joy, but simply quietly lived their own lives.
On Monday I woke up in a perfectly clean, hollow apartment. Karma did not improve from this, enlightenment did not come, but the apartment began to suspiciously resemble a room in a cheap chain hotel. Or a dental office. It was perfectly clean, and I absolutely did not want to live in it.
And then the payback phase began. A week later, I urgently needed the same cable. Two more days later, I caught a cold, and it turned out that it was terribly cold to be sick in aesthetic silk shorts, and I personally took those same nondescript fleece pants to the trash. It turned out that an old cup with a broken handle would be an ideal vessel for diluting hair dye, but it would be a shame to do so in a new minimalist vessel.
We're so desperate to fit our lives into Instagram-worthy minimalism that we forget one simple thing: our homes are not exhibition pavilions. Life is inherently messy. It's made up of movie tickets that are too good to throw away, an untied scarf, a strange piece of pottery brought back from a random vacation, and a chair piled high with clothes that are too early to wash but too old to hang in the closet.
Throwing away excess is a great practice if you have mice in your house or you can't physically open a closet. But in the effort to get rid of “visual noise,” it's all too easy to accidentally throw away your own comfort.
So now I honestly admit defeat. I have a box of incomprehensible cables. I have a chair of clothes. And if one day I feel like completely cleaning out my space again, I'd rather just close the bedroom door and go drink coffee. Preferably from my favorite old cup.
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Bearded Pike 📦 Treasures in boxes 02/26/2026 15:59 Yes, sometimes you have to get rid of old things. You need to “feel free” to give your friends or relatives things you don't really need, the value of which has decreased for you, but is still not zero. But you shouldn't rush to say goodbye to absolutely all the things “that you haven't used for over a year” – after all, some of them can lie around for another 2-3 years … and on the fourth they will be useful and will be like a find. This especially applies to tools, materials, and various fasteners – it's good when you need it, just go and get it in the closet or garage, and not run around the markets and stores, wasting your own time, nerves, and money… and an old cup, bowl, or embroidered pillowcase can sometimes remind you of a person dear to your heart, and even better than a photo or video on your computer + Reply