I don't think this is embarrassing at all. After the initial purge, I couldn't believe how much it changed my purchasing habits. I now have a very simple rubric that prevents me from buying things I don't need. Tidying Up reads as a sort of mild self-help manual but it conceals a powerful anti-consumerist undertow (speaking as an American, anyway)
I really like the phrase "anti-consumerist undertow!" but I also visualized it in the opposite way - consumerism as the undertow, and "Tidying Up" as the "swim parallel to shore until you're out" advice.
