Marie Kondo’s pivot to messiness is a sign of the times

The world-renowned decluttering expert has admitted that with three children to look after, she’s ‘kind of given up’ on tidying – a surprising new approach that’s very in keeping with the zeitgeist.

2022 was the year we embraced chaos. Still reeling from the pandemic, we zealously entered an age of total surrender, ferality, nihilism, liberation, and delusion; so much so, in fact, that Oxford Dictionaries’ ‘most popular’ word choice was ‘goblin mode.’

Following us into a time customarily reserved for new, healthier beginnings, this change in tune has been palpable throughout January, as more of us decided to distance ourselves further from the self-improvement movement that forcefully reared its head at 00:01am on the 1^st.

Including, in a shocking turn of events, Marie Kondo.

For the unfamiliar, the ‘queen of clean’ (as she’s so aptly referred to) first rose to fame in 2019 with the launch of her reality TV series ‘Tidying Up.’

The premise was simple: Kondo would visit people’s homes and declutter them in an attempt to restore calmness and ‘spark joy’ in the individual’s life.

This, as she explains in her latest novel, hails from the Japanese concept of ‘kurashi,’ whereby an organised space is of the highest importance if we’re to exist ‘optimally.’

Back then, the neatness guru’s ethos was a huge hit, with the show’s positive visions of revitalisation achieved through straightforward efforts towards domestic order deemed ‘magical’ by its millions of viewers.

Today, however, things are quite different.

‘Up until now, I was a professional tidier, so I did my best to keep my home tidy at all times,’ Kondo told the Washington Post.

‘I have kind of given up on that in a good way for me. Now I realize what is important to me is enjoying spending time with my children at home.’