After reading Marie Kondo’s “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” I chose to go through my clothing putting the joy test to practice. I began with a full armoire of clothing, which held various items hanging and a drawer filled with tops. Additionally, I had a separate dresser drawer devoted mostly to pants. Overall, I would estimate I had nearly 100 articles of clothing. For the sake of space in my small dorm room I sorted through my clothing by sections, which for the most part lent itself to article type, (i.e., tops, pants, etc.)

First, I assessed the hanging items.

Hanging Items Before Joy Test

I found that it was easier for me to part with items that I could not readily see, specifically the items that were tucked into the corners rather than in the middle in my direct line of sight. I found that nearly half of the items I had hanging were not articles of clothing that brought me joy at all. I did not have trouble parting with them, but rather appreciated the times they made me happy to wear.

Hanging Items After Joy Test

What I found interesting after assessing before and after photos was they look fairly similar. This reinforces Kondo’s idea that things in our plain sight that become invisible to us almost do not even really exist to us. Upon further application of the joy test I found this to be even more apparent for my experience.

Upon inspecting the first drawer that was filled with mostly tops and sweaters, I found there were many items I more or less entirely forgot I owned- things that had been tucked away that I did not actively seek out or think of when I was getting dressed.

Extremely Messy and Cluttered “Tops” Drawer

This made me think of how Kondo describes these articles as dormant or unseen. I had an uncanny number of t-shirts obscurely folded tightly to fit in this drawer. After an application of the joy test, I found that half of the tops I owned did not bring me joy. There were many items that I was only keeping because I had sentimental value attached to them. I was able to choose one item of many that represented the same sentiment to me and gracefully part with the rest.

Half of the contents of the drawer brought me pleasure and those were the items I chose to keep. After this realization I became conflicted- I felt somewhat guilty for owning so many items that I did not truly value, but I also felt relieved that I was able to peacefully let go of these items that were not meant for me anymore.

“Tops” Drawer After Parting With Half of the Contents

The final drawer I sorted through housed my bottoms, mostly pants. This drawer was jam-packed with multiple pairs of similar jeans. When I was picking through each item applying the joy test I was wondering why I owned so many pairs of jeans that just had slight variances between each other. I was able to sort through them and conclude that about half brought me joy and half did not. I was not conflicted trying

“Bottoms” Drawer Before Joy Test

to choose which items brought me joy, I was actually very relieved that I could part with these items that were tucked deeply into my drawers, because when I had tried to get rid of clothing in the past I always fell victim to the voice in my head convincing me that I would perhaps want to wear this item again in the future. Like the other sections of my clothing, I decided to keep about half of these items.

Left Pile: Discard. Right Pile: Brought Me Joy, Keep

Overall, I chose to keep about half of the clothing I owned after applying the joy test. This experience was not difficult for me, but in the past trying to do this with clothing has been. One interesting thing I became aware of was for the most part clothing is not very difficult for me to part with.

However, when I was thinking about what items I wanted to sort through for this exercise, thinking about my more sentimental items, like my books, evoked a sick feeling in my stomach. I did not want to consider the possibility that I would have to choose between them. This gave me insight into my personal relationship with objects that I am more attached to items that evoke emotion or a sentimental meaning to me. I could choose to discard fairly easily of an item of clothing, but thinking about discarding something like a book or a letter that had a more personal and emotional meaning to me felt nearly impossible. I believe my attitudes about objects stemmed from my family who taught me to value sentiments and keep them close to my heart, it makes parting with items of sentimental value feel like I am losing a friend. Overall, I found this exercise to open my eyes about my relationships with objects and why I feel more attached to objects that have depth and meaning in my heart and mind.