The Year of Less

Like others, I expected the book to be more how-to (a la Marie Kondo) and less memoir, but it was enjoyable all the same. Flanders and I share some traits, namely the propensity to need to do things all-or-nothing to make them stick. I had a few a-ha moments reading the book, like when she drew parallels between other bingey behavior and shopping. Like Flanders , I don't see myself as a shopaholic because I don't fit the stereotype of the cosmopolitan woman with a shoe closet - but I'm totally guilty of the retail therapy/getting stuff I don't need at Target thing... and for what? I've really been trying to focus on things in my house having a place, and if they don't have a place evaluating whether that means I need better storage (which, in an old farmhouse, is true in many cases) or if I need to not own them at all. But, Kondo's “Does this spark joy?” thing never quite helped me make the final decisions, so the biggest, most helpful takeaway I got from this book was when the author raised the point that some things she owned because they're appropriate for who she really is, and other things she owned because they were who she was trying to or thought she should be. The quote I highlighted was: “But there were really only two categories I could see: the stuff I used, and the stuff I wanted the ideal version of myself to use.” That really clicked. I've been purging some things and asking myself that question along the way, and it's gotten me past the things that “joy” didn't define.