Does It Spark Joy?

I've recently been reading a fascinating book called 'The Life-changing Magic of Tidying' by Marie Kondo. This Japanese woman has raised tidying to an art-form, and believes that if you once really, thoroughly tidy your house, using her KonMari method, you will never need to tidy again, because there will be a place for everything, and everything in its place.

I found some of her suggestions to be slightly OTT, but there were an awful lot of commonsense hints and tips as well. The KonMari method is a two-stage process: firstly you go through all your belongings and discard what you no longer need, secondly, you store the remainder in an orderly fashion. If you google 'KonMari method' many video clips will come up which illustrate the process.

One suggestion that really jumped off the page was what she said about how to decide what to throw away: "the best way to choose what to keep and what to throw away is to take each item in one's hand and ask: 'Does this spark joy?' If it does, keep it. If not, throw it out." Apparently it is necessary to actually take each item in your hand, not just look at it, in order to get the authentic reaction, the 'spark of joy' (or lack of it) which will tell you whether to keep or discard.

It occurs to me that this might be a very good way of approaching life generally, not just our possessions. "Does this spark joy?" If it does, keep it in your life; if it doesn't, throw it away, or stop doing it. It could be a yardstick for almost anything ...