When I read Marie Kondo had “kind of given up on tidying”, I felt vindicated. The author of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up made her fortune telling us to toss anything that didn’t spark joy, limit our library to 30 books, and fold our socks with precision. After the birth of her third child, she had a change of perspective (“changed her tune” was my more cynical thought). Now her teachings are said to focus on “what matters most”.
Kondo’s book—one I promptly added to my collection of a couple hundred—shared wise principles of order, beauty, and simplicity. My eyeballs still rolled. My to-do list told me what mattered more if not most.
3 years later, then Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg published Lean In, encouraging women to pursue their ambitions by focusing more on what they can do than what they can’t. Really? You think I’m not doing enough already? Married to a Silicon Valley CEO of a multibillion-dollar business, she was going to give the rest of us advice?
When Sandberg’s husband died suddenly at 47 while they were at a private villa in Mexico, I suspected she’d see the world differently. I’d been widowed 4 years before. I knew better.
