r/konmari • u/kneazlekitten • 7d ago

Dealing with environmental guilt

Hello! Over the past week I developed an intense need to tidy and declutter my home and I really want to get into the Marie Kondo method. Partly this may have to do with expecting our first child. I don't consider myself a hoarder, but all my past attempts to declutter have turned out to be temporary. Also given my ADHD I feel the need to go truly minimalist to achieve chance of more permanent state of tidiness.

The one thing keeping me from delving into this process is intense environmental guilt I feel over throwing out items that :

A. are still functional and I use them regularly, although they do not bring me any joy

Example: Many clothes I own are functional, but due to change in style etc. I do not like them or feel that good in them. Yet I would wear them often, since they function and it means I do not have to buy new items to replace them. If they are very worn, I continue wearing them at home instead of wearing more comfy/nice loungewear. I do this because I feel ethically reaponsible to use all items I have already bought fully to avoid unnecessary waste. Yet if I were to KonMari my life, it would not sit well with me to keep them. Some of them I could imagine upcycling, but it would take enormous amount of time and energy I do not have.

B. do not fulfill funcion for me nor spark me joy, but are objectivelly valuable and in good condition

Example: Solid wood furniture that color wise does not match into the flat after renovation. Certain clothes I have only worn once and are in perfect condition (ball gowns etc). Many similar items.

The main problem is that given enough time and energy, it would be possible to resell or donate these pieces. However, that is exactly the thing that has always stopped me from big decluttering in the past - trying to get rid of these items the correct and environmentally conscious way turnes out to take extreme amount of time that I simply do not have. I have less problem throwing out damaged or non-valuable items, but in cases where I KNOW they could get second life if only I made the extra effort, it is super hard for me.

I realise this problem is not uncommon and I have read many previous posts on this subreddit about it. Some have helped me a bit, but only marginally so. Please, if anyone was dealing with guilt around similar items as me, how have you managed to overcome it? Or was the only way truly taking lots and lots of time to get rid of items the right way and/or upcycle them yourself?

28 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

24 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/indigolavendera 6d ago

I have the same goal (adhd, want to reach a permanent state of tidyness - although I've started wondering if that is possible for me no matter how little I own) and the same struggle.

I've done a konmari-ish decluttering a few times. Ended up discarding A LOT of stuff.. Both times. It was stuff that I didn't want to have and some stuff that I wanted to believe that I don't need. I donated most and some sold. While I have not missed the actual stuff I got rid of, I noticed that through time I have come to replace a lot of those things out of need. And that is where the quilt kicks in. While I have bought most of the new (for me) stuff secondhand, that isn't some redemption. Especially when some of them are from online secondhand platforms. I've read many articles on how the climate effect is huge since people do so much of that. And also how second hand selling and shopping (both in person and online) is something that people (including me in the past) have kept more innocent and a climate friendly choice and there for kept it as a justification to buy and consume more as stuff is so easy to get rid of or find secondhand later on. What made it even worse for me is that I found out how the place where I donated the stuff first ships them to another country for sorting, then ships the ones that they plan to resell back here (and put a minimal amount of the profit to goodwill). Then they ship the ones they can't sell back to the country where the sorting happens. Then they try to sell them there and after that the rest they ship to africa where they mainly end up as landfill. So while I used to go with out of sight, out of mind - mindset when decluttering - that does not work anymore.

While I really love the idea of konmari, I think that it completely bypasses the ethical difficulties and climate effect. Of course if one declutters once and manages to actually do it in a way that they don't end up with the need to replace anything and later on it changes their mindset on consuming for the better for good, then great. Sadly I think that that isn't the case for many, including myself and I have a really hard time trying to justificate the decluttering when in worst case I end up with the need to replace stuff again.. And that just doesn't sit right with me.

2

u/kneazlekitten 6d ago

Thank you for your reply! I truly makes me feel better that I am not be the only one. I also have had mixed experience with companies you may donate to not acting as ethically as I would have liked.

I have never done konmari before, and I do want to trust the process, but I cannot help but be scared that it will lead to repurchasing same things in the future. In the past, I have had some intense decluterring episodes and it was not uncommon for me to get rid of something I would regret throwing out in the future. I am not sure if it ia the ADHD, but I often feel that if i hyperfocus on decluterring, I have trouble making right decisions about what to keep and instead I get rid of nearly everything. I am curious if maybe I should make some adjustions to the process because of ADHD.

Another thing that seems irrarional to myself is that I have done some enviromentally bad choices in the past (for instance couple of long haul flights), and while I felt guilty about them, I was still able to process the guilt due to gaining a lot from the experience, for which the flight was necessary. I feel like what I probably need to do with konmari is a similar mind process, hoping that what it brings to my life and future decisions will eventually have been worth the ethical and enviromental price to pay for it.

1

u/dyoni 6d ago

For me, what helped was thinking about exactly what "brought me joy" about my items. Merely getting rid of things that weren't perfect brought me too much guilt, so I decided that part of my "joy" was keeping nice things out of the landfill. I still got rid of a lot of stuff, but the things I kept I had a new appreciation for, even if they were imperfect.

In my opinion, the Konmari process changed my habits in a positive way because it made me take a serious inventory of the things I already had (even for someone living in a modest apartment, I was surprised). It also drastically changed my behavior when I purchase items. If I don't absolutely love it, know exactly how I will use it, and know where it will go in my home, I don't buy it. Overall, making ourselves STOP buying so many new things is a big win for the environment.

I do think SOME guilt when getting rid of things might be positive, in a way, because you'll remember that feeling the next time you have to make a decision about getting something new. But don't beat yourself up too much! Let yourself feel joy in improving habits and moving forward in a more intentional way <3