You may be familiar with Marie Kondo’s The Life Changing of Magic of Tidying Up. I have read it and adopted some of her tips. It’s so much easier for me to part ways with things now and our t-shirt drawers are amazing. (If you haven’t read it, please read it before judging it–to do otherwise is so not cool.)

Very often when I read a self-help book, I look for the thing or things that I can integrate into my routine, the concept that improves life in some way. I am not fanatical about self-help books. For me, they are just tools in the tool box. And I need tools for tidying.

I have too much stuff. I have good ideas but sometimes like a Pinterest pin, things don’t go to plan. Sometimes I outgrow things (literally and figuratively). And Kondo’s suggestion to thank an item for its service and then to let it go is helpful when faced with an overflowing closet. I do have a generous heart and something that has really assuaged my guilt about acquiring so many things is a Ferengi concept, the Great Material Continuum. This is explained in Treachery, Faith and the Great River from season seven of Star Trek Deep Space Nine. (Get the complete series for less than $100–what a deal.) Basically it’s the idea that you have too much of a thing and not enough of something else while someone else needs what you have and another person has what you need. You put your excess out to the universe and you ask the universe for what you need. (Like Freecycle!)

As Nog says, you have to have faith in the Great Material Continuum.

So I do.