After reading The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing from Marie Kondo.

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When embarking on a journey, what do people think about? Visiting unknown places, eating cuisines that they have never tasted, and getting in touch with histories and cultures of the place. They may discover something new, or be able to reflect on their footsteps in their life.

When outing afar, you would get ready as your imagination and heart guide: choosing what to wear and what to use for your hobby, and putting them in your suitcase. For just a small stroll alone, it’s the same. You prepare well to make the trip comfortable.

Such items help you right by your side, all along with your journey as your company. Yes, your items want to be helpful to you.

Savoring the journey with the items selected with care and joy, excites you. You must feel your heart dancing. In the morning of a journey, you can’t help but to feel excited to wake up – you must have experienced something like this over and over again.

Now, have a look around. If outside, it’s your clothes, cover case of the smart phone, and bag. If at home, it’s your decor, important T-shirt that your significant other gave to you, and favorite key holder and pen case with fond memories.

You must have unique stories and anecdotes that are interwoven between you and them. The fact that they exist there right by your side prove that you have such relationship with them.

Your items and you live together. Why not sorting out your room, facing with items that bring you spark-joy, and taking care of them? The more items you have, the time you can spend with each shortens. As long as they are there, taking care of them from dusts is same as treating yourself right.

And this moment, your items – each one of them – wants to be helpful to you. Whenever you are feeling from stressed out to tired after a long day, your items always stay by your side.

People are dynamic; your preferences and relationships would always change as your jobs, environment, and even yourself change. As this happens, naturally, what brings you spark-joy also changes. As people occasionally reflect on themselves, sometimes let yourself scrutinize and take care of your belongings.

To start over with the outlook as Japanese says, one may buy new items to completely refresh the mind. Likewise, it’s possible to let go unnecessary items that don’t bring you any spark joy.

When releasing your items, it should create some mental space and make you feel refreshed or reminiscent. You may feel comfortable, mentally uncluttered, or missing out, agitated. Either way, it’s meaningful to be aware of your emotions and to observe them. Because that is an important process that guides you to behave as your heart drives.

Once you have the mental space, you can start planing what to do from there on. If leaving yourself in the mental space is comfortable, it’s alright to do so. Or, you could get on to something new too.

Clothings that were chosen to be yours in the ocean of items out there, express you. Kettles that change electric energy to hot water in a couple of minutes; Smart phones that deliver music to your ear anytime and anywhere, instead of having professional musicians play; Video services that interest you restlessly; they all enrich your life.

We live in the civilization where advanced technologies are democratized. The cheaper, faster, and more convenient products and services are ever available to everybody than before; our day-to-day is filled with them and itself is the wealth that we all share.

On the other hand, mental spaces are disappearing from everybody. From advertisements that catch your eyes here and there, to the magical Internet temptation that sits in your pocket; everything around you does not stop drawing you to temptation at any time. So the question I’d like to pose is; does the mental space get to be erased by the wealth of items and services, or does it co-exist?

The motivation to create stuff lies in to embody a more convenient, easier, and richer lifestyle. Under this situation, our heart and passion comes ahead of materialistic objects. Probably since then, people started to grow a sense of attachment to or being drowned in the belongings as a result of the creation. Humans and items must have been living together since the born of the first civilization, so it can be said that we see citizens as bare humans and items combined.

When you can handle materialistic object like your limbs freely, humans can do a lot more. Originally, humans have evolved by using them – from the time with stones and furs, we’ve been accumulating and sophisticating items and eventually, we invented something that can do our work on behalf of us. As the beginning of computation era ends, its power distributed to individuals; as a result, we live as cyborgs.

As I started taking care of my items and listening to how my heart drives, I’ve gotten to find the balance more at which the mental space and the wealth with items and services co-exist; that is, it’s a state of neither extreme minimalism nor extreme materialism. How to discover it is not something you’ll be told; instead, it may be something that each person needs to find on their own.

Since long time ago, grabbing attention has been beneficial for people. Now the driving force of competition to seek the benefit keeps accelerating. IoT devices like smart phones started to get to know your minds, and part of smart phones and services that have become magic have dissolved in your unconsciousness, sometimes nudging your mind.

Because the world is going to change, this awareness that it’s an active act of discovering the balance will bring you a priceless mindset. Because the world is going to change, I want to recognize the changes of my mind with this mindset. I want to build a habit of listening to what my heart says and take care of my belongings with heart.

Because before any other of your belongings, it is the heart that is yours. If you don’t recognize its change, the peace of your mind – your heart – will probably be occupied immediately. Coincidentally in Japanese Chinese characters, being busy is written as ‘loosing heart’. Taking care of your belongings with heart will be your excellent guidance.