"断捨離 (dan sha ri)" Cutting Away, Throwing Away, and Getting Away

Now, the organizational skills for everyday life called "断捨離(dan sha ri)" are popular in Japan.

"断 (dan)" means "cutting away". "捨 (sha)" is "throwing away" and "離 (ri)" is "getting away".

Hideko Yamashita, the advocate of "断捨離 (dan sha ri)" said, "Cut away the stream of things that you don't need in your life. Throw away things that you don't need in your home. Get away from your obsession with possession. And then your life will be much easier."

I myself don't have a lot of obsession with anything, so I think that I don't need "断捨離 (dan sha ri)". But in fact my room overflows with books, and now my books are flooding all over my house.

My room was full of CDs. When I bought the iPod classic, I digitized all of my CDs and took all of them expect several CD that I really loved to a used CD shop. I did "断捨離 (dan sha ri)" with my CDs, and then I could sell them at good price. I rediscovered what music I loved and I've got rid of CDs as objects in the shape of a disk.

After I finish reading books, I divide them into two categories. One is the category of books that I'll read again, and the other is the category of books that I'll never read again. And I donate the latter category of books. But the number of my books does never stop increasing.

In Japan digitizing books is backward, because Japanese publishers are resisting it. I can read some out of copyright books on 青空文庫 (Aozora Bunko) and I installed the application for reading them into my iPhone, so I can do "断捨離 (dan sha ri)" with some of my old books. I'm really waiting for Amazon to start a Japanese kindle shop.