I haven’t read her book, but I keep wondering if Marie Kondo has ever been in your average home or office in Japan. Many of them are extremely cluttered and dusty. And things aren’t thrown out all that often in Japan either. The last school I worked for still had a closet full of tape recorders and half a classroom full of massive analog tv sets. Even the temples and Shinto shrines I’ve visited over the last 15 years often have cigarette butts littering the grounds. In fact, I met the old Buddhist monk that officiated my wedding in the lobby of the temple’s reception office while he was sitting in a chair smoking a cigarette and watching Sumo on tv.

As much as I love Japan, I find the constant second hand smoke and cigarette butts that litter the ground, including parks for children, depressing sometimes.