Dear Karen,

I'm thinking about the best way to organize my clothes in my closet. As a woman, It seems as if I have a gazillon items. I am going through them to determine if I really do want to keep them all. In the process, I'm wondering what is the best way to organize the different types of tops that I have from t-shirts to casual short and long sleeve tops to dressy short and long sleeve tops. I understand arranging them by color which I do. But by function is not really working. Or I might need to be more critical as to which category a top belongs in? Any suggestions would be helpful.

- Vera Mae Volk, USA

Karen's reply:

Most people only wear 20% of the clothes they own so rather than agonizing over how to organize everything my best suggestion is that you dump all the stuff you don't wear, arrange the rest by colour and then get on with your life.

A core premise of my teachings is that the western world has become far too engrossed in material matters, leading to spiritual disconnection on a massive scale. If I were to put your question to a Balinese person I know exactly what their reply would be: Put your hats at the top of the closet, your shoes at the bottom, and everything else in between according to where you wear it on your person. The reason is simple: They believe we are made in the image of God (microcosms within macrocosms) and so their clothes are arranged according to this cosmic design in order to bring spiritual harmony to their lives. Try it and see. It really feels great.