Leave your loved ones a good memory of you.
“ We always hope that it is our loved ones who want to inherit our things , but we cannot spend our lives waiting”, he writes Margaret Magnusson in her book ‘The Swedish Art of Tidying Up Before You Die’, (Ed. Reservoir Book, 2018).
She develops this reflection in the chapter in which she speaks of the table that she kept in her family home before her husband passed away. Around her they had always shared stories about regattas - a very common family activity in Sweden -.
When her husband died and moving to a smaller apartment she offered that table to her children. None wanted her. Finally, one of them bought a second home and kept it, but, she reasons in the book: “ would have been a fantastic table for anyone's home".
Margaret Magnusson she is the writer - eighty or one hundred years old, that is how she is described in her biography - of her that she has put the swedish art of tidying up before you die either döstadning Fashion. Yes, we already know that the Swedes have the virtue of finding words that summarize vital states, as we already warned you with ** 'lagom', the recipe to find happiness **.
Practice detachment.
She is the Swedish Marie Kondo , they say in the newspaper reviews about it. To which Margareta replies " not knowing who Marie Kondo is.
She has been practicing döstadning her whole life, and it is one of the legacies that she plans to leave to her children, and now also to the rest of the world. It is a practical and minimalist concept , which goes far beyond preserving what makes one happy.
From our earliest childhood we are accustomed to acquire objects and accumulate them , many of them go to a better life in cabinets and drawers without us noticing them. Therefore, this concept proposes something like: “If you don't love it, throw it away; if you don't use it, throw it away too”. Throw it away, or better yet, donate it or recycle it!
The idea that Margareta pursues is leave a somewhat more comfortable inheritance to your loved ones , but that can be applied to everyday life without the need to expressly think about death. As she tells Traveler.es, she has been practicing it for 60 years, when she moved into her first apartment.
Margareta helps you put your belongings in order.
Based on her own experience (she has moved 17 times) she has written this book for those young people who have just landed in a home, for those first parents who want to educate their children in a more conscious way , for those older people who want to start thinking about this last phase; or for those children who think it may be good advice for their parents or a good time to talk about something as dangerous as death.
When Margareta's parents died, she had to take care of all their personal effects , with the emotional burden that this entails, something that she confesses, it cost her a lot of time. "Don't even think that someone is going to want -or be able to- order what you didn't bother to order . Do not leave them that burden no matter how much they love you ”, she sentences.
So it's not about thinking about death, it's about being practical in life . For this, the writer proposes a clear and realistic manual - that touches your heart- on how to try to disconnect with those personal objects that we don't use or don't make us happy. Living with less, after all.
In each chapter she addresses a theme and resolves it through her experience. For example: how to order your home, moving, what to do with photographs, gifts, books, clothes...
Does it look like the 'Order Magic' by Marie Kondo ? It may be so, since the two share the order as a method to have a life in harmony and happiness, but Margareta adds a much more emotional charge , which is to leave our loved ones an easier inheritance.
An orderly home is the reflection of a life in balance.