I recently read an article that suggested that the KonMari Method was encouraging people to throw out necessities of life. This is not true. The article inspired me to explain the way I understand how Marie Kondo approaches the objects in our space that may not excite us, but prove helpful in day-to-day life.

Marie Kondo doesn't intend for everyone to throw away their rakes and toilet plungers. If a tool or appliance helps you to solve a problem in your life, the ability to solve that probably brings you joy. Therefore, you can say with confidence, this toilet plunger brings me joy.

Unless you hate that specific toilet plunger then you should go find the nicest toilet plunger that you can find, and then store it in a way that when you see it, it sparks joy. Unless you absolutely hate storing a toilet plunger and in that case you can go buy one at the store when you actually need it. Is it worth storing if it brings you down every time you see? Maybe yes, maybe no. We can always buy one if we need one for $5 or $10. These are the questions you can ask yourself.

There are necessities of life, like can openers. Sometimes people don't even realize they have 4 of them until they go through all of their belongings in categories, as the Konmari Method suggests. When you discover you have four can openers, you can ask yourself, "Which of these can openers brings me the most joy?" and then discard the rest. This is how you handle the tricky joy checking of necessities of life.