Final Draft
I had a sad, torn, gray t-shirt that always sat in the dark corner of my dresser drawer. It sat there for an extended period of time of which I cannot even quantify, always catching the corner of my eye as a reminder of its blotted existence. It had a musty scent and it was rarely put on (only to be immediately taken off for something else). “Just throw the shirt away”, my wife told me. This sounded like a simple task that even I could complete. Lose the shirt; got it. But it never happened, and the task was left unchecked in the back of my mind; always putting it off and not wanting to do anything about it. I began to grow an uneasy feeling every time I saw that sad clump of clothing sit in its dark corner, and it begun to look more ugly and intruding with every passing day.
I had a sad, torn, gray t-shirt that always sat in the dark corner of my dresser drawer. It sat there for an extended period of time of which I cannot even quantify, always catching the corner of my eye as a reminder of its blotted existence. It had a musty scent and it was rarely put on (only to be immediately taken off for something else). “Just throw the shirt away”, my wife told me. This sounded like a simple task that even I could complete. Lose the shirt; got it. But it never happened, and the task was left unchecked in the back of my mind; always putting it off and not wanting to do anything about it. I began to grow an uneasy feeling every time I saw that sad clump of clothing sit in its dark corner, and it begun to look more ugly and intruding with every passing day.
What I had experienced with the t-shirt is not unfamiliar with what most people experience as a minor form of hoarding or “common clutter”. Common clutter is the everyday messes, possessions, and tasks that are left unattended, forgotten, or hidden to people in their day-to-day. This is not to be confused with compulsive hoarding, which is also a real and diagnosable disorder, but not the aim of the paper to describe. All people exhibit hoarding tendencies to some degree; it is human nature. While Compulsive Hoarding affects 2% to 5% of adults in America according to the Clinical Psychology Review, common clutter affects everyone.
Now I just want to take a moment and address the inherent problem that this may not seem like a serious problem to most people. Messes occur and possessions incur, it is a fact of life. When your study desk becomes too stuffed with documents of varying occasions and importance, or when your bedside table collects too many mugs with molding tea sachets, it is a simple manner of responsibility to organize your life. But that is exactly what I want to research in this paper, how do you organize your life? Is there an optimal method for our emotional positivity to organize and what exactly are the detrimental effects on our psyche that the everyday clutter might have on us? Research has shown us once more from the Clinical Psychology Review that compulsive hoarding occurs because of unhealthy emotional attachments to items or unfounded fears. This is proof that our relationship to our possessions can and are emotional, so whether we realize it or not the things with which we fill our homes, bedrooms, closets and suitcases with can have an underlying yet adverse effect on our general happiness. Just to reiterate, common clutter is not having too much of something, it is the poor utilization of space of what you own as a result of your lack of emotional connection with your possessions or space.
But first let me address a statement made earlier; that all people exhibit hoarding tendencies and that it is human nature. I would also like to make the statement that while I do not believe common clutter has been researched extensively as I described (having had to conduct my own research for this assignment), this phenomenon is so encompassing of basic human behavior that there are so many other studies done that influence what I determined to be common clutter and help to solidify its existence as its own area of study. There is one research paper in particular that is Hal Arke’s, “Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Process”, a study where a “sunk cost” is examined. A sunk cost is a similar phenomenon because it documents how people will make the least favorable decision at the sake of themselves if there is a believed loss of a return on an investment for them. There are many studies performed in the paper with the probability of a person making one decision over another calculated from the results gathered. Another description of a sunk cost is when a person makes a payment of some form and it is negated because the thing being paid for is no longer available or desirable. Therefore the cost has been paid while the product has fallen through.
An example offered by the paper is where a man wins a free ticket to a football game. He doesn’t want to go alone so convinces a friend to buy a ticket as well. On the day of the game, a horrible storm occurs and reaching the stadium where the game is being held is no longer viable or safe. The winner of the free tickets opts to not go to the game, but the friend who bought their ticket still wants to go despite the evident storm and the agony that would be involved in reaching the destination. Arkes is trying to point out in the man’s decision making where he would rather risk the trip rather than realize that the worth of seeing the game would not equal to the worth of going through the storm.
This is very telling of human behavior and common clutter because it illustrates the poor decision making that occurs when decisions are based off of impulse and emotions. The same problems apply with possessions. Often times people buy too much of something or keep things for too long because of some perceived value and use in the future. If we go back to the gray shirt that I kept in my drawer for years, I always had the thought in the back of my head that there was some point in my life where I had enjoyed wearing this shirt. I didn’t want to get rid of the shirt or else I forfeit those feelings from so long ago. But I am not thinking rationally and considering the degradation of the quality of the shirt, and my general distaste for the space that the shirt is taking up. The only difference from Arkes’ study is that in scenarios considering common clutter, I can simply not make a decision about doing anything with my shirt. I simply leave it in the drawer because I couldn’t take ten seconds to address my feelings about it and make a decision of where the shirt should actually go. It did not seem time sensitive to take care of.
Unfortunately this begins to manifest the negative repercussions of common clutter, and that is the deep-seed discomfort and uneasiness that comes with the knowledge of things left unattended. It almost acts as a form of guilt and can be the cause of anxiety. This can add unneeded stress on a person’s daily life, affecting them without them realizing it and as we know, negative emotions are half the equation to a positive mental and physical health, or at least according to Laura Kubzansky in her 2007 study “Keys to a Happier, Healthier Life”. There is such a thing as “toxic stress” that can trigger the human body’s stress response with harmful effects such as a faster heart rate, higher blood pressure, and a jump in stress hormones. Much of Kubzansky’s work revolves around mapping happiness and learning how we measure it. The entire point of this is that clutter can make people unhappy, and by simply teaching people how to deal with it can imrpove quality of life and overall positivity in your day-to-day.
Hopefully this validates common clutter more as a serious occurrence, something I tried to address with a friend who allowed herself for examination for this project but wished to remain anonymous. For the purposes of ease, we will refer to her as Jane Doe.
Jane is a college student who has been living on her own since she left home three years ago. She has her own car, dorm room, and life. I remember going to class with Jane and always remembering that she had an organized bag, notes, and a clean demeanor. Based off of her outside appearances, I would have never assumed the dire conditions that Jane constantly lived in. And its not that Jane was a hoarder in any sense of the word, but she was definitely messy, misplaced, and often times frazzled. I walked into her dorm to find it abounding with unwashed dishes, strewn clothes, and a layer of dust on just about every surface. It’s not that Jane was lazy either, she was in fact very hardworking. So what went wrong here?
Jane often sites that she wasn’t sure how the mess came to be in the first place. She works so hard outside that she often wants to just relax when she gets home. She had never done dishes or laundry before so this was a large challenge for her. The messes accumulated so quickly that she was in fact merely discouraged at what looked like a beast of a mess that she simply tried to ignore it and not tend to it. She has had other apartments of varying degrees of quality in the past, but none of which has she ever truly felt comfortable in. It is the difficulty and conundrum of owning a “space”.
What is different this time around and what my next source is going to be is that she is equipped with Marie Kondo’s New York bestseller, “Spark Joy”, a book completely dedicated to systematically tackling this problem of common clutter. For someone like Jane, this book is a great boon because it addresses a very important aspect as to why common clutter occurs; our emotional and psychological connection to, and how to handle the clutter while maintaining an emotional through-line that can effect lasting change in how our living spaces are utilized.
Before we delve into the specifics and categories that “Spark Joy” provides for people like Jane and myself to deal with common clutter, it must first be noted that “Spark Joy” is not a completely scientific written piece in that knowledge and advancing scientific understanding are not its goals. This is not to undervalue the fact that there is scientific value in the work regardless that must be recognized and brings up the other point that there is actually very little in the way of research when it comes to the everyday clutter that people experience on an occasional basis. It is a specific and reoccurring phenomenon in so that it deserves the attention from the scientific community as its own specific area. That isn’t to say no scientists at all have researched common clutter, it is just that more need to because of the intrinsic value and life improvement to be had from doing so.
Are you utilizing this space at its maximum potential? Are you truly happy with all of your possessions? While it may appear trivial at first, addressing all of the items in your home may reveal deep, rooted unhappiness within your life. Have you not ever experienced messes so defeating and difficult to take care of? Have you ever found it difficult to uphold the standards of your home? Do not deny what is so apparent around you and face the ultimate fact that there is an unavoidable clutter that surrounds your life.
Jane had this clutter, but now these questions were finally being addressed by an unlikely source that was imported and translated from Japanese author Marie Kondo. In Marie Kondo’s “Spark Joy”, the first thing they teach you in the book is how to emotionally address the physical objects you have collected in your home.
With Kondo’s interesting approach that coined the term “Konmarie”, the Konmarie method requires you to almost personify an object that exists in your home and has a place in it. You need to think about your history with the object, why you are keeping it, and if it has any other practical value. Objects sort of have a relationship with you and need a purpose within your home. You may also have collections and sentimental items, and Marie Kondo also addresses that in another section. The goals of addressing the things in your home is to gauge whether the relationship between you and it is beneficial, and if it is not you must part ways with it. You must thank it for its time and the memories it has given you, and then set it aside to make way for the new. You must also be sure that during this process that you hold the item and deeply examine it. You are looking for that emotional spark you will soon learn to recognize as the spark of joy under which the book is named for. Does this thing spark joy for you? If it doesn’t, you must part way for it.
Although the ritual is strange, in my examination of Jane, she has cited that spending this last time with an object that has so long cluttered her home and yet found it so difficult to let go of in the past is no longer as hard after holding the object, and trying to emotionally connect with the object. If there is no longer any reasonable emotional connection, she found it easier when she thanked it and said goodbye.
Again, this shows how people create common clutter largely from fear. People fear loss, and seeing it manifest so clearly in a person’s everyday life is revealing of the work Marie Kondo has done. After several weeks of addressing different areas of the apartment, Jane had konmaried just about her entire living space. She said that it felt as though a weight had been lifted and that she finally felt comfortable where she lived. She was ready to move on.
A few weeks is all it took to train the habits by which Jane will live by the rest of her life that makes her more happy and well person. Perhaps the greatest question and call to action from this entire research paper is this; why aren’t we doing more? So little can be done to improve the lives of people so greatly.
Detractors may say that this is a non-issue because of course if you organize and clean, you will be more happy then you would in an unsanitary and unorganized home. But that does not address the fact this is isn’t just about cleaning your home and organizing it, it is about facing the things you are not willing to let go that are weighing you down and making it difficult for you to live. Perhaps there isn’t a mess on your kitchen table, but what benefit is there to be gained from the model ship on your desk? What value does it truly have for you and does it truly increase your quality of living? Or are you more afraid of it breaking to the point that it makes you upset? Knowing your home and your space is the greater gift to be found in knowing your space and owning it to make it completely yours.
Common clutter can come in many forms, and it needs to be made more widely known and shown to people as a very serious detriment to everyday life. So much can be done by simply introducing the methods of decluttering; people would begin living happier and healthier, knowing that their lives are more open and free then they have even been before.
Jane lives better today than she ever has before, and she is emotionally and mentally equipped to deal with the common clutter that will eventually occur in her life. She accepted that she mustn’t deny the human aspect of her fear, and learn to make the trip deep into the unconscious and find the true meaning of an object, how it is a part of her, and how it makes her life. But this is one last push to help those who are around you today, or even yourself. Have you addressed all of the things in your life? Are they truly making you happy? Or do they lack any practical purpose? See how you’re feeling after you Konmarie some things, and if you feel good, do a friend a favor and help them Konmarie something for good.
Although the ritual is strange, in my examination of Jane, she has cited that spending this last time with an object that has so long cluttered her home and yet found it so difficult to let go of in the past is no longer as hard after holding the object, and trying to emotionally connect with the object. If there is no longer any reasonable emotional connection, she found it easier when she thanked it and said goodbye.
Again, this shows how people create common clutter largely from fear. People fear loss, and seeing it manifest so clearly in a person’s everyday life is revealing of the work Marie Kondo has done. After several weeks of addressing different areas of the apartment, Jane had konmaried just about her entire living space. She said that it felt as though a weight had been lifted and that she finally felt comfortable where she lived. She was ready to move on.
A few weeks is all it took to train the habits by which Jane will live by the rest of her life that makes her more happy and well person. Perhaps the greatest question and call to action from this entire research paper is this; why aren’t we doing more? So little can be done to improve the lives of people so greatly.
Detractors may say that this is a non-issue because of course if you organize and clean, you will be more happy then you would in an unsanitary and unorganized home. But that does not address the fact this is isn’t just about cleaning your home and organizing it, it is about facing the things you are not willing to let go that are weighing you down and making it difficult for you to live. Perhaps there isn’t a mess on your kitchen table, but what benefit is there to be gained from the model ship on your desk? What value does it truly have for you and does it truly increase your quality of living? Or are you more afraid of it breaking to the point that it makes you upset? Knowing your home and your space is the greater gift to be found in knowing your space and owning it to make it completely yours.
Common clutter can come in many forms, and it needs to be made more widely known and shown to people as a very serious detriment to everyday life. So much can be done by simply introducing the methods of decluttering; people would begin living happier and healthier, knowing that their lives are more open and free then they have even been before.
Jane lives better today than she ever has before, and she is emotionally and mentally equipped to deal with the common clutter that will eventually occur in her life. She accepted that she mustn’t deny the human aspect of her fear, and learn to make the trip deep into the unconscious and find the true meaning of an object, how it is a part of her, and how it makes her life. But this is one last push to help those who are around you today, or even yourself. Have you addressed all of the things in your life? Are they truly making you happy? Or do they lack any practical purpose? See how you’re feeling after you Konmarie some things, and if you feel good, do a friend a favor and help them Konmarie something for good.
Bibliography:
Oh, Kevin. Jane Doe and Decluttering. Print. Research and study performed for this paper.
Arkes, H. R., & Blumer, C. (1985), The psychology of sunk costs. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 35, 124-140.
Kondo, Marie. Spark Joy: An Illustrated Guide to the Japanese Art of Tidying. London: Vermilion, 2017. Print.
Rimer, Sara. "Happiness & Health." News. Harvard T.H. Chan, 19 Feb. 2014. Web. 30 Apr. 2017.
Pertusa, Alberto. Refining the Diagnostic Boundaries of Compulsive Hoarding: A Critical Review. Www.sciencedirect.com. Elsevier, 2010. Web. 30 Apr. 2017.
"What Is Compulsive Hoarding?" UC San Diego Health Sciences. UC San Diego Department of Psychiatry, n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 2017.
Oh, Kevin. Jane Doe and Decluttering. Print. Research and study performed for this paper.
Arkes, H. R., & Blumer, C. (1985), The psychology of sunk costs. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 35, 124-140.
Kondo, Marie. Spark Joy: An Illustrated Guide to the Japanese Art of Tidying. London: Vermilion, 2017. Print.
Rimer, Sara. "Happiness & Health." News. Harvard T.H. Chan, 19 Feb. 2014. Web. 30 Apr. 2017.
Pertusa, Alberto. Refining the Diagnostic Boundaries of Compulsive Hoarding: A Critical Review. Www.sciencedirect.com. Elsevier, 2010. Web. 30 Apr. 2017.
"What Is Compulsive Hoarding?" UC San Diego Health Sciences. UC San Diego Department of Psychiatry, n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 2017.
Rough Draft
Sometimes the hardest things to let go are the things we expect the least, the things we dislike the most, and the source of all our discomfort. It is the source of that deep-seeded attachment which is truly driven by our fear of change and facing the unknown or forgotten. And all of this manifests in our everyday lives on the dining room table. A table full of papers. Letters, reminders, homework, all of it clutters together into a magnum opus of a mess.
Compulsive hoarding is a real and diagnosable disorder, but what I aim to describe here in this paper is a little more subtle, and perhaps even more so sinister. All people exhibit hoarding tendencies to some degree; it is human nature. This minor form of hoarding that all people experience lacks a defined term (at least from my research), so from this point on I will refer to it as “Common Clutter”. While Compulsive Hoarding affects 2% to 5% of adults in America according to the Clinical Psychology Review, Common Clutter affects everyone.
Jane Doe (a pseudonym under request of the subject) takes me through her journey as she tries to declutter her home. She is nowhere near definable as a Compulsive Hoarder, but her home has gotten so much out of her control that she feels she needs to take a hard look and take action for it. She is equipped with Marie Kondo’s New York bestseller, “Spark Joy”, a book completely dedicated to systematically tackling this problem of common clutter. For someone like Jane, this book is a great boon because it addresses a very important aspect as to why common clutter occurs; our emotional and psychological connection to, and how to handle the clutter while maintaining an emotional through-line that can effect lasting change in how our living spaces are utilized.
Before we delve into the specifics and categories that “Spark Joy” provides for people like Jane and myself to deal with common clutter, it must first be noted that “Spark Joy” is not a completely scientific written piece in that knowledge and advancing scientific understanding are not its goals. This is not to undervalue the fact that there is scientific value in the work regardless that must be recognized and brings up the other point that there is actually very little in the way of research when it comes to the everyday clutter that people experience on an occasional basis. It is a specific and reoccurring phenomenon in so that it deserves the attention from the scientific community as its own specific area. That isn’t to say no scientists at all have researched Common Clutter, it is just that more need to because of the intrinsic value and life improvement to be had from doing so.
Research has shown that common clutter has been studied in parts and in so many different contexts, but I think no other sources help to describe the mental and emotional inspirations than Hal Arke’s, “Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Process”, a study where a “sunk cost” is examined.
The source examines and studies the decision making choices people make when there is a “sunk cost” involved. There are many studies performed in the paper with the probability of a person making one decision over another calculated from the results gathered. A sunk cost is when a person makes a payment of some form and it is negated because the thing being paid for is no longer available or desirable. Therefore the cost has been paid while the product has fallen through.
An example offered by the paper is where a man wins a free ticket to a football game. He doesn’t want to go alone so convinces a friend to buy a ticket as well. On the day of the game, a horrible storm occurs and reaching the stadium where the game is being held is no longer viable or safe. The winner of the free tickets opts to not go to the game, but the friend who bought their ticket still wants to go despite the evident storm and the agony that would be involved in reaching the destination. Arkes is trying to point out in the man’s decision making where he would rather risk the trip rather than realize that the worth of seeing the game would not equal to the worth of going through the storm.
People are poor decision makers, and it may help to look at the writings of Dan Harmon’s “Story Structure 102: Pure Boring Theory” to understand the psychology of our minds and better understand how common clutter may occur. In it, Harmon describes the human mind as having an “upstairs” and a “downstairs”. The upstairs is our conscious, while the downstairs is our subconscious. The upstairs is where we present ourselves to people and experience fun, joy, etc. The downstairs is where we hide things that we are afraid of or things we want to control. While we enjoy spending time in our upstairs, for the health of our minds we must make mental trips in to the downstairs where our demons and monsters lurk and face the unknown that we may return to the upstairs. These round trips are important because they make us tend to life-sustaining things that keep the psychological “house” of our mind running in good condition. It is a basement with important pipes, tubing, the fuse box and furnace. When we do not make those trips, things begin to break and pour into our unconscious mind. This reflects so accurately common clutter, as with the sunk cost people will hold onto things that may benefit them in some unlikely probability when a happier and healthier decision exists.
Jane Doe has lived a messy life for as long as she could remember. A young college student, she has her own apartment from her parents and has lived on her own for at least 4 years. One of the most difficult things she has learned from leaving the home of her parents is how difficult it is to maintain a living space. She has had other apartments of varying degrees of quality in the past, but none of which has she ever truly felt comfortable in. It is the difficulty and conundrum of owning a “space”.
But such is the case of people; it is in our nature to fill a physical space and let it spiral out of control. While the space is completely ours, it is a space that in truth rules us, pressures us, and creates deep, dark problems within our psyche. We begin to dread the terrible darkness and depths of the messes we form, and we begin to avoid them until they brim from the corners in which we tried to keep them contained. They become personified into these denizens of our subconscious that wreak havoc on our wellbeing and happiness. It is not until we either face our demons and cleanse them from us are we rid of them, or the alternative in which we allow them to invade our daily conscious selves and allow them to dwell with us in every possible facet of living. Some, would call that a mental breakdown. Many experience this in the context of the physical space.
Are you utilizing this space at its maximum potential? Are you truly happy with all of your possessions? While it may appear trivial at first, addressing all of the items in your home may reveal deep, rooted unhappiness within your life. Have you not ever experienced messes so defeating and difficult to take care of? Have you ever found it difficult to uphold the standards of your home? Do not deny what is so apparent around you and face the ultimate fact that there is an unavoidable clutter that surrounds your life.
Jane had this clutter, but now these questions were finally being addressed by an unlikely source that was imported and translated from Japanese author Marie Kondo. In Marie Kondo’s “Spark Joy”, the first thing they teach you in the book is how to emotionally address the physical objects you have collected in your home.
With Kondo’s interesting approach that coined the term “Konmarie”, the Konmarie method requires you to almost personify an object that exists in your home and has a place in it. You need to think about your history with the object, why you are keeping it, and if it has any other practical value. Objects sort of have a relationship with you and need a purpose within your home. You may also have collections and sentimental items, and Marie Kondo also addresses that in another section. The goals of addressing the things in your home is to gauge whether the relationship between you and it is beneficial, and if it is not you must part ways with it. You must thank it for its time and the memories it has given you, and then set it aside to make way for the new. You must also be sure that during this process that you hold the item and deeply examine it. You are looking for that emotional spark you will soon learn to recognize as the spark of joy under which the book is named for. Does this thing spark joy for you? If it doesn’t, you must part way for it.
Although the ritual is strange, in my examination of Jane, she has cited that spending this last time with an object that has so long cluttered her home and yet found it so difficult to let go of in the past is no longer as hard after holding the object, and trying to emotionally connect with the object. If there is no longer any reasonable emotional connection, she found it easier when she thanked it and said goodbye.
Again, this shows how people create common clutter largely from fear. People fear loss, and seeing it manifest so clearly in a person’s everyday life is revealing of the work Marie Kondo has done. After several weeks of addressing different areas of the apartment, Jane had konmaried just about her entire living space. She said that it felt as though a weight had been lifted and that she finally felt comfortable where she lived. She was ready to move on.
A few weeks is all it took to train the habits by which Jane will live by the rest of her life that makes her more happy and well person. Perhaps the greatest question and call to action from this entire research paper is this; why aren’t we doing more? So little can be done to improve the lives of people so greatly.
Detractors may say that this is a non-issue because of course if you organize and clean, you will be more happy then you would in an unsanitary and unorganized home. But that does not address the fact this is isn’t just about cleaning your home and organizing it, it is about facing the things you are not willing to let go that are weighing you down and making it difficult for you to live. Perhaps there isn’t a mess on your kitchen table, but what benefit is there to be gained from the model ship on your desk? What value does it truly have for you and does it truly increase your quality of living? Or are you more afraid of it breaking to the point that it makes you upset? Knowing your home and your space is the greater gift to be found in knowing your space and owning it to make it completely yours.
Common Clutter can come in many forms, and it needs to be made more widely known and shown to people as a very serious detriment to everyday life. So much can be done simply by introducing the concepts of Konmarie or decluttering and we’d have a happier, healthier society because of it.
Jane lives better today than she ever has before, and she is emotionally and mentally equipped to deal with the common clutter that will eventually occur in her life time and time again. She accepted that she mustn’t deny the human aspect of her fear, and learn to make the trip deep into the unconscious and find the true meaning of an object, how it is a part of her, and how it makes her life.
Sometimes the hardest things to let go are the things we expect the least, the things we dislike the most, and the source of all our discomfort. It is the source of that deep-seeded attachment which is truly driven by our fear of change and facing the unknown or forgotten. And all of this manifests in our everyday lives on the dining room table. A table full of papers. Letters, reminders, homework, all of it clutters together into a magnum opus of a mess.
Compulsive hoarding is a real and diagnosable disorder, but what I aim to describe here in this paper is a little more subtle, and perhaps even more so sinister. All people exhibit hoarding tendencies to some degree; it is human nature. This minor form of hoarding that all people experience lacks a defined term (at least from my research), so from this point on I will refer to it as “Common Clutter”. While Compulsive Hoarding affects 2% to 5% of adults in America according to the Clinical Psychology Review, Common Clutter affects everyone.
Jane Doe (a pseudonym under request of the subject) takes me through her journey as she tries to declutter her home. She is nowhere near definable as a Compulsive Hoarder, but her home has gotten so much out of her control that she feels she needs to take a hard look and take action for it. She is equipped with Marie Kondo’s New York bestseller, “Spark Joy”, a book completely dedicated to systematically tackling this problem of common clutter. For someone like Jane, this book is a great boon because it addresses a very important aspect as to why common clutter occurs; our emotional and psychological connection to, and how to handle the clutter while maintaining an emotional through-line that can effect lasting change in how our living spaces are utilized.
Before we delve into the specifics and categories that “Spark Joy” provides for people like Jane and myself to deal with common clutter, it must first be noted that “Spark Joy” is not a completely scientific written piece in that knowledge and advancing scientific understanding are not its goals. This is not to undervalue the fact that there is scientific value in the work regardless that must be recognized and brings up the other point that there is actually very little in the way of research when it comes to the everyday clutter that people experience on an occasional basis. It is a specific and reoccurring phenomenon in so that it deserves the attention from the scientific community as its own specific area. That isn’t to say no scientists at all have researched Common Clutter, it is just that more need to because of the intrinsic value and life improvement to be had from doing so.
Research has shown that common clutter has been studied in parts and in so many different contexts, but I think no other sources help to describe the mental and emotional inspirations than Hal Arke’s, “Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Process”, a study where a “sunk cost” is examined.
The source examines and studies the decision making choices people make when there is a “sunk cost” involved. There are many studies performed in the paper with the probability of a person making one decision over another calculated from the results gathered. A sunk cost is when a person makes a payment of some form and it is negated because the thing being paid for is no longer available or desirable. Therefore the cost has been paid while the product has fallen through.
An example offered by the paper is where a man wins a free ticket to a football game. He doesn’t want to go alone so convinces a friend to buy a ticket as well. On the day of the game, a horrible storm occurs and reaching the stadium where the game is being held is no longer viable or safe. The winner of the free tickets opts to not go to the game, but the friend who bought their ticket still wants to go despite the evident storm and the agony that would be involved in reaching the destination. Arkes is trying to point out in the man’s decision making where he would rather risk the trip rather than realize that the worth of seeing the game would not equal to the worth of going through the storm.
People are poor decision makers, and it may help to look at the writings of Dan Harmon’s “Story Structure 102: Pure Boring Theory” to understand the psychology of our minds and better understand how common clutter may occur. In it, Harmon describes the human mind as having an “upstairs” and a “downstairs”. The upstairs is our conscious, while the downstairs is our subconscious. The upstairs is where we present ourselves to people and experience fun, joy, etc. The downstairs is where we hide things that we are afraid of or things we want to control. While we enjoy spending time in our upstairs, for the health of our minds we must make mental trips in to the downstairs where our demons and monsters lurk and face the unknown that we may return to the upstairs. These round trips are important because they make us tend to life-sustaining things that keep the psychological “house” of our mind running in good condition. It is a basement with important pipes, tubing, the fuse box and furnace. When we do not make those trips, things begin to break and pour into our unconscious mind. This reflects so accurately common clutter, as with the sunk cost people will hold onto things that may benefit them in some unlikely probability when a happier and healthier decision exists.
Jane Doe has lived a messy life for as long as she could remember. A young college student, she has her own apartment from her parents and has lived on her own for at least 4 years. One of the most difficult things she has learned from leaving the home of her parents is how difficult it is to maintain a living space. She has had other apartments of varying degrees of quality in the past, but none of which has she ever truly felt comfortable in. It is the difficulty and conundrum of owning a “space”.
But such is the case of people; it is in our nature to fill a physical space and let it spiral out of control. While the space is completely ours, it is a space that in truth rules us, pressures us, and creates deep, dark problems within our psyche. We begin to dread the terrible darkness and depths of the messes we form, and we begin to avoid them until they brim from the corners in which we tried to keep them contained. They become personified into these denizens of our subconscious that wreak havoc on our wellbeing and happiness. It is not until we either face our demons and cleanse them from us are we rid of them, or the alternative in which we allow them to invade our daily conscious selves and allow them to dwell with us in every possible facet of living. Some, would call that a mental breakdown. Many experience this in the context of the physical space.
Are you utilizing this space at its maximum potential? Are you truly happy with all of your possessions? While it may appear trivial at first, addressing all of the items in your home may reveal deep, rooted unhappiness within your life. Have you not ever experienced messes so defeating and difficult to take care of? Have you ever found it difficult to uphold the standards of your home? Do not deny what is so apparent around you and face the ultimate fact that there is an unavoidable clutter that surrounds your life.
Jane had this clutter, but now these questions were finally being addressed by an unlikely source that was imported and translated from Japanese author Marie Kondo. In Marie Kondo’s “Spark Joy”, the first thing they teach you in the book is how to emotionally address the physical objects you have collected in your home.
With Kondo’s interesting approach that coined the term “Konmarie”, the Konmarie method requires you to almost personify an object that exists in your home and has a place in it. You need to think about your history with the object, why you are keeping it, and if it has any other practical value. Objects sort of have a relationship with you and need a purpose within your home. You may also have collections and sentimental items, and Marie Kondo also addresses that in another section. The goals of addressing the things in your home is to gauge whether the relationship between you and it is beneficial, and if it is not you must part ways with it. You must thank it for its time and the memories it has given you, and then set it aside to make way for the new. You must also be sure that during this process that you hold the item and deeply examine it. You are looking for that emotional spark you will soon learn to recognize as the spark of joy under which the book is named for. Does this thing spark joy for you? If it doesn’t, you must part way for it.
Although the ritual is strange, in my examination of Jane, she has cited that spending this last time with an object that has so long cluttered her home and yet found it so difficult to let go of in the past is no longer as hard after holding the object, and trying to emotionally connect with the object. If there is no longer any reasonable emotional connection, she found it easier when she thanked it and said goodbye.
Again, this shows how people create common clutter largely from fear. People fear loss, and seeing it manifest so clearly in a person’s everyday life is revealing of the work Marie Kondo has done. After several weeks of addressing different areas of the apartment, Jane had konmaried just about her entire living space. She said that it felt as though a weight had been lifted and that she finally felt comfortable where she lived. She was ready to move on.
A few weeks is all it took to train the habits by which Jane will live by the rest of her life that makes her more happy and well person. Perhaps the greatest question and call to action from this entire research paper is this; why aren’t we doing more? So little can be done to improve the lives of people so greatly.
Detractors may say that this is a non-issue because of course if you organize and clean, you will be more happy then you would in an unsanitary and unorganized home. But that does not address the fact this is isn’t just about cleaning your home and organizing it, it is about facing the things you are not willing to let go that are weighing you down and making it difficult for you to live. Perhaps there isn’t a mess on your kitchen table, but what benefit is there to be gained from the model ship on your desk? What value does it truly have for you and does it truly increase your quality of living? Or are you more afraid of it breaking to the point that it makes you upset? Knowing your home and your space is the greater gift to be found in knowing your space and owning it to make it completely yours.
Common Clutter can come in many forms, and it needs to be made more widely known and shown to people as a very serious detriment to everyday life. So much can be done simply by introducing the concepts of Konmarie or decluttering and we’d have a happier, healthier society because of it.
Jane lives better today than she ever has before, and she is emotionally and mentally equipped to deal with the common clutter that will eventually occur in her life time and time again. She accepted that she mustn’t deny the human aspect of her fear, and learn to make the trip deep into the unconscious and find the true meaning of an object, how it is a part of her, and how it makes her life.
WRITING PROJECT 3: THE PERSUASIVE RESEARCH PROJECT
BACKGROUND AND OVERVIEW
This is the project that we have been building to throughout the course. In the Project Proposal, you identified a problem or issue in your community that needs attention and proposed to research that problem or issue. In the Annotated Bibliography, you conducted research on your topic and collated that research in a single document. In the Persuasive Research Project, you will draw upon your writing and thinking to recommend a course of action based on your research.
This assignment will ask you to prepare and present your overall research project to an audience that has the ability to do something about this problem or issue. In order to do this, then, you will need to decide who that audience is, and how you can best address them in this project.
REQUIREMENTS AND DELIVERABLES
1. Your Persuasive Research Project must provide the background and need for the research that you conducted. You can draw from your project proposal to describe the project’s exigency, stakeholders, and audience.
2. You should articulate a controlling purpose early in the project. In other words, your readers need to understand what you are trying to accomplish in the project. Are you trying to convince a group of people to take a particular action based on your research? Are you trying to identify gaps or oversights in knowledge and lead others to continue researching and thinking about these gaps?
3. You should present your research to your audience in a way that makes it intelligible to them and supports your controlling purpose.
4. Your research must be integrated; in other words, do not include any “drop quotes” or unexplained materials.
5. Be sure to define and explain any key or technical terms.
6. You must describe a course of action or research that should be taken, who should undertake this course of action or research, and why it is likely to yield positive results.
7. Your Persuasive Research Project must acknowledge and try to address any limitations in the project. These limitations might be material, social, political, and/or positional.
8. Your project should be 1500-1750 words in length, and be consistently grammatical to an extent that syntax does not obscure semantics (a reader who is proficient in English can read your paper without confusion due to grammatical issues).
9. Your essay needs to include and integrate at least two multimodal elements. You could include pictures, sounds, or even hyperlinks to other resources, but you must make sure that your reader understands why you are including these elements and why including them enriches your piece of writing. Consider what media beyond text might reinforce your main idea to readers, convey in another way the significance of your project, and/or appeal to your readers from a different register.
10. All sources should be cited according to MLA conventions, and you should include a Works Cited section at the end of your project.
FINAL DRAFT SUBMISSION:
Upon completing your final draft of Writing Project #3, do the following:
1. Please add your final draft to your ePortfolio and publish it to the web.
2. Copy the Web Address (URL) that links to Writing Project #3 in your e-portfolio, and paste it in the box provided below.
3. Submit your response.
TIPS
- Get started early.
- Review this week’s materials and discussions.
- Pay close attention to the ePortfolio course site @ http://gfaeng102.weebly.com
- Set a writing/research schedule and stick to it.
BACKGROUND AND OVERVIEW
This is the project that we have been building to throughout the course. In the Project Proposal, you identified a problem or issue in your community that needs attention and proposed to research that problem or issue. In the Annotated Bibliography, you conducted research on your topic and collated that research in a single document. In the Persuasive Research Project, you will draw upon your writing and thinking to recommend a course of action based on your research.
This assignment will ask you to prepare and present your overall research project to an audience that has the ability to do something about this problem or issue. In order to do this, then, you will need to decide who that audience is, and how you can best address them in this project.
REQUIREMENTS AND DELIVERABLES
1. Your Persuasive Research Project must provide the background and need for the research that you conducted. You can draw from your project proposal to describe the project’s exigency, stakeholders, and audience.
2. You should articulate a controlling purpose early in the project. In other words, your readers need to understand what you are trying to accomplish in the project. Are you trying to convince a group of people to take a particular action based on your research? Are you trying to identify gaps or oversights in knowledge and lead others to continue researching and thinking about these gaps?
3. You should present your research to your audience in a way that makes it intelligible to them and supports your controlling purpose.
4. Your research must be integrated; in other words, do not include any “drop quotes” or unexplained materials.
5. Be sure to define and explain any key or technical terms.
6. You must describe a course of action or research that should be taken, who should undertake this course of action or research, and why it is likely to yield positive results.
7. Your Persuasive Research Project must acknowledge and try to address any limitations in the project. These limitations might be material, social, political, and/or positional.
8. Your project should be 1500-1750 words in length, and be consistently grammatical to an extent that syntax does not obscure semantics (a reader who is proficient in English can read your paper without confusion due to grammatical issues).
9. Your essay needs to include and integrate at least two multimodal elements. You could include pictures, sounds, or even hyperlinks to other resources, but you must make sure that your reader understands why you are including these elements and why including them enriches your piece of writing. Consider what media beyond text might reinforce your main idea to readers, convey in another way the significance of your project, and/or appeal to your readers from a different register.
10. All sources should be cited according to MLA conventions, and you should include a Works Cited section at the end of your project.
FINAL DRAFT SUBMISSION:
Upon completing your final draft of Writing Project #3, do the following:
1. Please add your final draft to your ePortfolio and publish it to the web.
2. Copy the Web Address (URL) that links to Writing Project #3 in your e-portfolio, and paste it in the box provided below.
3. Submit your response.
TIPS
- Get started early.
- Review this week’s materials and discussions.
- Pay close attention to the ePortfolio course site @ http://gfaeng102.weebly.com
- Set a writing/research schedule and stick to it.