493 | Family Matters

The Minimalists talk about letting go of family clutter, making a distinction between family and friends, surrendering broken things, how to stop being a "yes man," the link between closet clutter and past trauma, punishing kids for bad behavior, minimizing old moving boxes, and much more! Discussed in this episode: I found out my deceased wife was having an affair before she died. Consequently, I might not be the biological father of our daughter. What should I do to let go? (2:09) How do you differentiate between friends and family? (21:22) Right Here, Right Now: Have a Zoom call with The Minimalists. (42:09) Listener tip: How to let go of broken things. (43:22) Listen to the full Maximal episode on Patreon: patreon.com/theminimalists http://patreon.com/theminimalists Detailed show notes: minimalists.com/podcast http://minimalists.com/podcast Recorded at Earthing Studios http://earthing.com/simple.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:20Speaker 00

  Every little thing you think that you need. Every little thing you think that you need. Every little thing that's just feeding your greed. Oh, I bet that you'll be fine without it.

• 0:39Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, hello, everybody. Welcome to the Minimalist Podcast, where we discuss what it means to live a meaningful life with less. My name is Joshua Fields Milburn, and joining me here at Earthing Studios in beautiful West Hollywood, California, is my good friend TK Coleman. Coming up on this free, public minimal episode, a caller has a question about letting go after he found out that his deceased wife was having an affair before she died. And we usually save these juicy discussions for the private podcast, but we thought this would be perfect for page one. But then we have a lightning round question about the best ways to differentiate between friends and family, and that's followed by our Right Here, Right Now segment and a listener tip.

• 1:21Joshua Fields Millburn?

  You can check out the maximal edition of episode 493. That's the full two-hour episode where we answer three times as many questions on Patreon. The link is in the description. When you subscribe, you can listen to our private podcast episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Plus, you'll gain access to all of our podcast archives, all the way back to the very first episode. That's a full decade of archives. By the way, big thanks to our patrons. Your support keeps our podcast 100% advertisement-free, because, sing along at home, y'all. Advertisements suck. Let's start with our callers. If you have a question or comment for our show, we'd love to hear from you.

• 2:01Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Our phone number is 406-219-7839, or you can email a voice recording to [email protected]. Our first question today is from Lucky.

• 2:11Speaker 02

  Hello, minimalists. This is Lucky from Bangalore in Australia. I'm a Patreon subscriber and have been following your work for around 10 years. My situation is a complicated one. My wife of twenty-two years died on the first of April this year after years of fighting brain cancer. In her final weeks, she suffered from significant cognitive decline. And as a result of this, I took over correspondence on her phone, emails and social media. It was through this that I discovered she had been unfaithful some years ago and had an affair which lasted at least two years. Through messages between my wife and this other man, I have learnt that I may quite

• 2:55Speaker 02

  possibly not be the biological father of our eight-year-old daughter. My daughter has lost a dear friend, a mother and her counsellor to cancer within eighteen months. My concern for her is deep, and if it turns out that I am not her biological father, how all this loss will play out in her life. I know I can't control the end result for my daughter, but how do I hold this all lightly, let it go and support her? If finding out she is not mine doesn't change the fact that I am and will always be her dad, do I even consider doing a DNA test? Thank you for the wisdom you all share.

• 3:38Speaker 02

  I have found hearing and reading your words a source of great peace over the years, and it has helped me greatly through the challenges in my life. Thank you.

• 3:47Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Oh, Lucky, I can only imagine going through all of this. I'm sure it was really difficult for you and confusing, and now it's even more confusing, and of course, for your eight-year-old daughter, how confusing all of this would be. She doesn't even know all of these other details that you know. And so sometimes, the story that we don't know, when we learn more information, it just confuses things even more. And you were in a really difficult situation, and of course, stumbling across maybe old text messages or emails or interactions with someone from her past and from this affair. And I don't think we want to excuse what was going on there, but maybe we can better understand it.

• 4:27Joshua Fields Millburn?

  TK, if Lucky was one of your clutter counselling clients, what questions would you start with for him?

• 4:34Speaker 03

  Man, I just first began with affirming and encouraging the grief. You know, a situation like this doesn't make grieving any easier. For someone on the outside, you know, you may be inclined to think, "Oh, well, maybe this would be something that could be grounds for ending the relationship if she were alive. So maybe that could contribute to letting her go being a little bit easier." But it's often the opposite because you tend to wish you could have had the conversations, you know? It might have been easier to process or cope with if you could have just gotten an explanation or heard her story or just been able to express how you feel about it. And now, he doesn't get that.

• 5:17Speaker 03

  And so, I'm sorry, man, because there's a double loss. There's the loss of someone that you loved and poured your life into. And what she did and your discovery of it doesn't change the fact that you really loved her. And there's also the loss of an opportunity to be able to address that grievance that was never revealed to you. And so, thank you for being vulnerable and sharing this with us. And again, I'm really sorry and I would highly encourage you to honor the grieving process for as long as you need to honor it. The first thing I would say is you need someone to talk to consistently about this. I think this is the sort of thing that it's good to have friends to be able to talk with,

• 5:58Speaker 03

  but our relationship has other expectations and demands that go beyond talking about our problems. And so, that can skew how discussing our challenges are perceived. I think you need someone who is dedicated to hearing you out and helping you process this. A therapist, a spiritual director, you know, a mentor, someone that's willing to meet with you every week, every other week, just to give you a chance to talk about where you're at with it and be able to ask you some questions about it and so on. One question I'd ask myself when it comes to, you know, looking into the situation and investigating any further is, "What do you think you have an easier time letting go of?" Do you think you have an easier time letting go of the questions?

• 6:39Speaker 03

  Or letting go of the knowledge that the questions will bring you? Sometimes, we have curiosities and we say, "I gotta know, I gotta know, I gotta know." And then, we find out, we say, "Ooh, I wish I'd never knew." And sometimes we say, I don't wanna know, I don't wanna know. And we find ourselves not being able to sleep several years later, still hanging on. But what if, but what if? And this is one of those areas where we all have different temperaments. So we gotta be honest with ourselves. Do I have an easier time letting go of unanswered questions? Or do I have an easier time letting go of the answers that asking questions brings?

• 7:14Joshua Fields Millburn?

  You know, for me, I thought about this question through the lens of my own experience. And I thought about my family and I'm in a unique situation to, I guess, talk to Lucky about this because my daughter is not my biological daughter and I know that, but I don't treat her any differently. And if for some reason I got a DNA test today, and I know this is the sort of the inverse here. If I got a DNA test today and I found out she was my biological daughter, what would change? And I think it's a fair question. And I had to sit down when I listened to this the first time and I had to think about what would change? Well, I don't know, maybe her last name would change. But besides that, our relationship wouldn't change at all. I would treat her the same. I, I wouldn't treat her any differently because of this new knowledge. And I think that's where Lucky was with this.

• 7:59Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And, and so my question for you is, what will change if you do indeed get that DNA test? You said you, should I even consider getting a DNA test? Well, you're already considering it. That's why you're calling and asking a question like this. And so the thing to really consider here is what's going to change if you get that information? And the decision tree from here is either yes or no. And it may mean that nothing changes. And if nothing changes, then why would you get it? But if there is something that is going to change on the other side of this, okay. Now does it make sense for you to get that test? And does it change any of the past? Well, I don't think so. It changes maybe your story about the past and, and finding these old messages

• 8:41Joshua Fields Millburn?

  from a previous lover, from a previous affair, from your wife. It doesn't mean that she loved you any less. It just means that she was going through something at the time through which she didn't feel like she could be honest. And that's really unfortunate. And I'm not victim blaming you here. Clearly, if she stepped out on the marriage and you didn't have an agreement where that was an okay thing to do, then she did something that you wish she wouldn't have. And I bet you, if you could go back and ask her now, she'd say, oh yeah. Well, I had a great experience, maybe even I loved this other person. Because it is possible to love more than one person at once. There's no question about that. That's just how love works. But you might, might find out that she would have done it differently.

• 9:26Joshua Fields Millburn?

  If she had the courage to do things differently, she would have gone back and done it differently. But with the resources she had at the time, she did it this way. And now you're sitting there left sort of cleaning up the pieces.

• 9:38Speaker 03

  Let's play a little game of what would you do with it being understood that this is not you telling anyone else what they should do. You're in this exact situation. What would you do?

• 9:48Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, if I'm in this situation and my wife dies and then I find out that Ella isn't my biological daughter, even though I thought she was this whole time.

• 9:57Speaker 03

  Or you find out that she might not be and you still have the question.

• 9:59Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Okay, that, that's, that's fair. And so that's exactly where Lucky is right now. I wouldn't need to get the DNA test for me because it wouldn't change anything about the way that I treated her, the way that I take care of her, or the way that we're going to plan for her future. It doesn't, it doesn't mean that my day to day would change. Now, if it just made sense in terms of curiosity, like I would like to know this, or if we got to a point in the future in which Ella, who's 11 right now, if she wanted to know it when she was an adult, then fine, we could have that conversation together if it was important to her. But for me, because I've raised Ellis since she was one year old and I continue to raise her and will continue to raise her until she's an adult, it would not change.

• 10:43Joshua Fields Millburn?

  If I found out that like, oh, wait a minute, she's not my biological daughter, I'm kicking her out of the house immediately, right? No, that's not what I'm going to do. And, and so for me, it wouldn't change anything. I wouldn't feel compelled to get the test. But that doesn't mean that I wouldn't feel compelled to try to unpack and excavate what is sort of going on here. What was going on in my marriage before? Why did this happen? What does this say about me? What does it say about my perception of other people? Not so that I can ruin future relationships, but so I can avoid not getting my heart broken. Because if you love, you're going to get your heart broken. That's what it means to, to love, right? At some point, you're, you're going to find, you're going to allow someone to break your heart and you allowed someone to break your heart here.

• 11:28Joshua Fields Millburn?

  But that, that to me is an indication that you were there for her and you loved her in a way that gave her, you were vulnerable enough to, to allow your heart to be broken.

• 11:39Speaker 03

  Do you think you would have a moral obligation of some kind to find out for the sake of your daughter? So let's say that the other man really is her father. Would it be important for you to confirm that so that if she does have a different biological father, she can, even if it's not until you have the conversation at age 18, she can have the, the, the knowledge of that and the option to do what she wants to do with that information?

• 12:11Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I wouldn't call it a moral obligation, but I, I think there would be maybe an ethical obligation for me to have that conversation with her when the time was right. And at age eight, I, I don't think the time would be right for me.

• 12:27Speaker 03

  Agreed.

• 12:28Joshua Fields Millburn?

  In this scenario, I think it would, especially all this grieving, because obviously Locky's going through grieving. Imagine what his daughter's going through at age eight and, and trying to process the, the death of your closest family member, the, the bond between a young girl and her mother. It can't be replaced, right? But I do think we get to a point where I would want her to know that there is some sort of possibility that I'm not her biological father. However, I don't think that there's a, I don't, I don't find it to be a moral quandary. If you go back and look at a lot of ancient hunter gatherer tribes, they have no idea who the father is with a lot of the children because they're raised communally. And so it doesn't matter, it doesn't have the same significance that it has for us

• 13:13Joshua Fields Millburn?

  in our culture.

• 13:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, I, I think one of the more important to me insights of, of the many good things you just said is that there, there's no expiration date on finding this information out. And that's not an arbitrary appeal to procrastination, but it's an important thing to keep in mind when you're already in the process of dealing with some heavy things, which all by themselves are incredibly difficult to deal with. Dealing with your grief over your lost wife and helping your daughter cope with her grief over the lost mother, that deserves all the attention that you got right now.

• 13:55Speaker 03

  And who knows if you're gonna always feel like you have what it takes to be present to that. This second question, which is for you right now, because it might be early to discuss this with her, even if that's what you decide to do. That's something that if you decided, alright, in six months, in one year, in two years, I'm at a point where I can talk about this with some clarity and some composure, or I can look into this and handle that, that might be better for both you and your daughter, because you're dealing with a lot right now, and there's nothing about putting that off that renders you unable to come back to it again when you're in a better mental space. But I would be leery about giving myself too much to think about, talk about, and

• 14:39Speaker 03

  process all at once.

• 14:41Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I think that's a fair point. If I get into a really bad car accident, I end up in the emergency room and it's April 15th, I'm going to cease to worry about filing my taxes on time. I'll work out the extension after the fact, because there's so much else going on right now. And for Lucky, it feels like a particular kind of emergency. Your wife of 22 years just died, but also your conception of the marriage died in a way as well. And so you're trying to put all these pieces back together, the same way that if I was in the emergency room, I'm still just trying to, I'm trying to heal. I'll get to those taxes eventually, I'll get to the nuts and bolts and, and we'll figure that out.

• 15:21Joshua Fields Millburn?

  But right now, I'm not gonna be in the hospital bed, bed sort of working on my, my tax forms, my, my 1099s and pulling the receipts out and all this other stuff. You might wonder, why is Lucky calling into this show, a show about minimalism, and asking a question like this? And I think it's the perfect question for our show, because a piece of it is about letting go, and fundamentally, that's what we talk about, living a meaningful life with less, and sometimes that's less stuff. We do talk a lot about material possessions, and, and of course, your material possessions are made of matter, but they don't matter the way your family matters. Ooh, family matters, is that the episode title here? Are we just gonna keep using Drake songs from here on out?

• 16:04Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Next episode's Marvin's Room, 5am in Toronto. Anyway, I digress, but your, your family matters to you. And in a moment, during the lightning round, we'll talk a bit about logical family versus biological family. And to me, that's less relevant. I think that will become apparent throughout this episode. But your daughter is your family, regardless of what the DNA test may or may not say. And yes, maybe you get those results back and you'd feel some sense of relief, right? But it still doesn't change the fact that you're going to have to take care of her. You're going to have to be there when she's grieving. You're going to have to be there together. You're going to have to show her that you love her. And

• 16:46Joshua Fields Millburn?

  in order to do that, you don't require a DNA test. She matters to you in a way that our material possessions, the things that we often pretend are so important, don't matter the same way that our family does. It doesn't mean I'm against material things, obviously. I really enjoy the things that amplify my life or amplify my relationships with my friends and family and loved ones and coworkers. And yet, I can look at this and I can say, wow, you're going through so much right now. It's actually helping you determine what really matters. Any last words for Lucky here?

• 17:26Speaker 03

  Anytime we problem solve, there's what we have to think about, and there is the disposition from which we think about it. If you set before me a sheet of paper with 10 math problems, that's what I have to think about. Now, the disposition can vary. I can be sleepy. I can be awake. I can be grumpy. I can be in a good mood. The disposition that I'm in when I try to problem solve is just as important as the problem itself that needs to be solved. And right now, I think the most important thing is to realize that this problem is going to be here. There's nothing that you're going to do today to make it go away. And there's nothing that you're going to do today that's going to take away the opportunity to deal with it in the future. The most important thing right now is to

• 18:09Speaker 03

  get yourself into a disposition where you can give yourself and your daughter what she needs and what you need. You need to be there for her and there for yourself. Those two things are incredibly difficult. Lastly, when it comes to your wife, I would say when people die, sometimes we have a tendency to divinize them or to demonize them. But one of the hardest things to do when people die is to humanize them. And this might be challenging, given the information that you found out and the apparent contradiction in it all. But I think it would be good for your grieving process and for your daughter, for you to take some time to humanize your wife, together with your daughter,

• 18:48Speaker 03

  by exchanging some conversation with her about fond memories, good times, things that you've learned, so that when you address this issue, you can do so from a healthy place of appreciating all the good things and doing the best that you can to be whole.

• 19:04Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I think that's such an important point, because you can only understand her when you humanize her, as opposed to divinizing or demonizing. That's how to misunderstand someone. It's putting someone on a pedestal, or tossing them down into a crater and scorning them. It dismisses them in a way that seeks to misunderstand them or to not understand them at all. But if you want to understand your wife and your relationship, if you want to love your deceased wife, then you'll work to understand her and see her for what she was going through, flaws and all. And Locky, I'd love to give you a clutter counseling session with TK, if you want to keep this conversation going, because it takes more than 15 or 20 minutes

• 19:46Joshua Fields Millburn?

  to really unpack some of these things. And whether it's physical clutter, family clutter, relationship clutter, spiritual clutter, career clutter, there are a bunch of different kinds of clutter that we have in our lives. And I think TK can help you out with that. So we'll reach out to you, we'll get you a clutter counseling session. And for anyone else who's interested in booking a clutter counseling session, go to theminimists.com, just click counseling at the top. You can book a session with him here in Los Angeles, or remotely via Zoom. I'd also love to give you a copy of The Minimalist's first book. It's called Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life. And it talks about the three different types of relationships that we have in our lives. I'm sure we'll unpack that a little bit more throughout this episode. But when we talk about what is important to us, we identify the five values.

• 20:32Joshua Fields Millburn?

  That I identified in my own life and Ryan identified in his that are the foundational values in our life. And one of those is relationships. And we try to unpack the three different types of relationships in our lives. So we can figure out the best way to allocate our time to the people we care about. Now, before we get back to our callers, it is time for the lightning round where we answer the Patreon community chats question of the week. This is where we attempt to answer your question with a short, shareable, minimal maxim. You can find this episode's maxims in the show notes at theminimalists.com and every minimal maxim ever at minimalmaxims.com. We'll also deliver our weekly show notes directly to your inbox, including seven new maxims every Monday for free. If you sign

• 21:13Joshua Fields Millburn?

  up for our email newsletter at theminimalists.com. We'll never send you spam or junk or advertisements, but we will start your week off with a dose of simplicity. The question of the week this week, TK is, how do you differentiate between friends and family? Now, before we get to our pithy answers here, let's see what some of our listeners had to say. Andrea said, for me, family members are the people in my life who are in it for the long haul. When my husband and I were getting to know each other, I explained that I see relationships in two categories, the close right now bucket and the forever bucket. And it's up to the

• 21:53Joshua Fields Millburn?

  people in my life to choose which bucket they want to be in. So when we started dating, he bought me a small silver bucket and wrote forever on it. I still have the bucket and eight years later, we're still married with hopes of making it forever. Now, this is the cutest story. TK, do you find it useful to think of relationships in terms of forever and temporary or close right now versus forever? What are your thoughts on that?

• 22:20Speaker 03

  I think it can be helpful because it reflects the reality of The fact that some people come in and out of our lives and they serve a good role, but they're not always there forever. This helps us temper our expectations and not be bitter at people who don't turn out to be forever friends. We want to maintain our ability to be accurate about the positive influence that someone played in our lives, even though we may not talk to them anymore. There are people that maybe I haven't talked to since I was in fifth grade, but they're part of my life story. They're very pivotal. They've been very good to me and they are friends, even if we're not in touch today. And that not only tempers your expectation and releases you from, you know, the resentment of people not being forever friends, but I just think it's a more realistic way.

• 23:05Speaker 03

  I do think, however, there's a qualification that we should place on it. And that qualification is, yes, people do get to choose which bucket they're in, but their failure to choose to be a forever friend is not necessarily a reflection of loyalty or a lack thereof. It's a part of life that we evolve. Our needs change, our ways change, our compatibilities change. And so someone might be a friend at a certain stage in our lives because it just makes sense. There are things we go through together. There are ways that we might comfort each other. And if someone says, hey, I'm not a forever friend. I need to go this way. That doesn't mean like, oh, okay, yeah, you were with me till things got tough, but you weren't a ride or die friend.

• 23:48Speaker 03

  No, it might just mean they were the friend they needed to be. So as long as we don't put a value judgment on the temporary versus forever, we can appreciate the forever without condemning the temporary, then we set ourselves up for a more realistic outlook.

• 24:02Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I think it becomes harmful only when we're not willing to change that bucket for someone, right? And so you realize that forever can mean two things. It can mean in perpetuity. That's often how we use it. Or it can just mean with great depth, right? Eternal is another way. We use this word eternal or eternity to also mean forever, but eternity can also mean with great depth. There can be this eternal moment. And when you're present, you experience the eternity of this moment. And so maybe in that way, a forever friend is just someone with whom you are really present for a week or a month. Or a difficult season in your life. It was that kind of eternal friend. And maybe that relationship didn't last until death do us part. And by the way,

• 24:44Joshua Fields Millburn?

  every marriage ends. It ends in divorce or in death. And most of the time, it's not two people driving off the cliff like Thelma and Louise who are dying together. So you are going to see, most likely, the end of your marriage at some point. Or maybe it's your husband that will see the end of the marriage. And hopefully for you, it's many years in the future and you've gotten to a point where you have lived a long, beautiful life and now it's time to let go of even that. And so even a forever relationship doesn't mean forever, forever. It just means, I understand this framing here, it means long term versus short term, but I don't want to pathologize short term relationships. You had friendships in elementary school that you're grateful for,

• 25:28Joshua Fields Millburn?

  and you probably haven't talked to that person in decades, and that is okay. You don't have to drag every relationship forward from the past.

• 25:37Speaker 03

  That's exactly right. You know how I know you're gonna be a forever friend?

• 25:40Joshua Fields Millburn?

  What's that?

• 25:40Speaker 03

  You don't need me.

• 25:43Speaker 03

  That makes you so attractive.

• 25:47Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Well, I think that's something else here. And so for me, I do, I put people in these buckets as well. And I agree with what Andrea is saying here. They get to choose what bucket they're in. But also I get to choose because I don't want someone else just choosing the bucket. Imagine if someone on the street comes up to you and says, I'm your forever friend. Run. That's terrifying, right? And so, yes, of course, the people get to choose, but also you get to choose and make that decision as well. I think what she was saying is that they choose kind of by their behavior. But also, in the first book that we have, Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life, what we talk about there is these three different types of relationships. You have primary relationships. Usually for most people, that's about about five people. If you're Catholic, maybe it's 10 people, if you have a big family.

• 26:32Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Or, and then you have these secondary relationships. You have the people you're close to, but they're not your primary relationship. They don't live in the same house for you, with you, that you're best friends. Many of your family members actually fall into the secondary relationships. Relationships category. And then you have the peripheral or tertiary relationships. These are the people on the periphery that you still care about, you love, you're excited to see them. But maybe you don't talk to them all the time. I have quite a few people in that tier for me. I kind of look at it as concentric circles, like you're looking at a bullseye. And those five people closest to me are the people that are the most important in my life. And beyond that, there's a larger group in the secondary tier. Maybe for some people, it's 10 to 20. If you're super extroverted like Nicodemus, maybe it's 100 people in his secondary tier.

• 27:17Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And for me, I have a lot of people in that tertiary tier, people I still care about. But I can't allocate all of my resources to them, my time, my attention, my energy, my money. Because if I do, I'm forsaking the people closest to me. And that is when it becomes a problem. Back in my corporate days, I forsook those primary relationships because I was spending time with networking buddies and at corporate events and conferences and with coworkers and working 80 hours a week around all of these people who were fine people. They were tertiary or peripheral relationships. But unfortunately, I forsook the people closest to me because I only have 168 hours in a week.

• 27:58Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And I wasn't spending that time, attention and energy on the people who were closest to me.

• 28:04Speaker 03

  One more thing about forever friends. A forever friend doesn't have to be a for everything friend, right? We talked before about like my MBA friends, but the reverse is also true. I have a friend, Dr. Tim McGrew, mentor of mine, philosophy professor in college. I love that man and he'll always be a part of my life. But I have never received the slightest bit of indication from him that he cares about the MBA playoffs. That's just not a zone we're going to go into conversationally. And guess what? It's all right. He's not a for everything friend. He doesn't have to be a part of every aspect of my life or interested in everything I'm interested in in order to be there forever.

• 28:42Joshua Fields Millburn?

  That's spot on. And Professor Sean's here the same way. He's on the couch right now. I don't generally talk to him about basketball unless there's an article about one of my favorite players in the New Yorker that he's read, Nikola Jokic. And so now all of a sudden, we're Actually bonding over the New Yorker writing and then he actually brings him into my world a little bit. But otherwise, I'm not going to talk about basketball with Sean. The same way he's not going to talk about some things that Star Wars or Star Trek. Now, if there is a valid reason to talk about it, I'm totally open to it. But I'm not going to know all the nuances and I'm just going to slow him down if he's talking about Star Trek. Stopping him every 30 seconds, having him explain all of the depths of the 1970s and 80s and beyond. Anyway.

• 29:25Joshua Fields Millburn?

  He said, there's so much wrong there. He's already offended. Alexis had this to say, she said, I don't consider some of my biological family to be my family because of how poorly they've treated me over the years. For me, it boils down to respect, who is there for me and who I would show up for. Which actually brings me to my pithy answer here. I'm going to get it out of the way early. Your biological family is assigned, your logical family is appointed. When we got in here today, Malabamal had left a note on the table. She was dropping some stuff off yesterday and it just said, much love to my logical family. And so you get to, yeah, you don't get to choose your biological family, right? There's that old saying, if you want to be successful in life, choose your parents wisely.

• 30:10Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And of course, you can't choose your parents wisely. But you can choose your logical family wisely. You didn't get to pick your biological family. You didn't get to pick the city in which you were born. You didn't even get to decide whether or not you were born. That decision was made for you. Your aunts, uncles, siblings, cousins, you didn't get to pick them, right? But you do get to decide where you spend your time and your attention, where you allocate your energy. And for me, it boils down to my logical family, the family that I choose to be around. People who I would consider like Nicodemus. When we're on tour and we're at a coffee shop or something, I'll say, let me order a coffee for my brother. Because that describes our relationship.

• 30:54Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Now, I don't mean biological brother, right? He's my logical brother. And talking about it that way, because we have that bond. In fact, he and I are so much closer than any of my biological siblings. I have five biological siblings on my father's side and I really don't know any of them very well. I have three brothers and two sisters and I've seen a few of them as an adult, but I saw them a couple of times as a kid and that was it. So technically, they're my biological family.

• 31:25Joshua Fields Millburn?

  But they're certainly not the family with whom I choose to spend my time. Not because they're bad or evil or wrong. I only have so much time and so I've chosen to spend my time differently. Quick thought experiment for you here, though, TK. Let's say you were stranded in a third world jail cell and you had one phone call.

• 31:48Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Who would you call?

• 31:52Speaker 03

  I'm calling Michelle.

• 31:53Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, and why?

• 31:54Speaker 03

  That was a tough decision because you you want somebody who doesn't just love you, but you want somebody who can execute. So I thought about you and Isaac Morehouse.

• 32:03Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 32:03Speaker 03

  But I know how my wife worries. And I know she wouldn't be able to sleep. And I know and I know that she would tell some people who wouldn't be able to sleep. And I think that'd get me out of there.

• 32:16Speaker 03

  There are certain people in my life that I never tell them anything because I know they're just such worry warts that they would never let it go. But for something like that, they're the first people that would come to mind. You know, you're you're one of those people.

• 32:28Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Well, I aspire to be one of those people. And not in a way where I I need to be the first call if you ever end up in jail, but I aspire to be the type of person that you can rely on.

• 32:37Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 32:37Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And to me, being reliable is important. It's important that my friends and family are reliable. And I've seen this huge wave. I think it's probably because we're so overstimulated by social media and text messages and and our iPhones and the barrage of information. It just feels like it's cascading in all the time. I've noticed a wave of really flaky people. And I don't think that they're flaky necessarily, their behavior. Because it's almost like you you have to throw up your hands and say, I am information bankrupt. I've I've gotten so many text messages, so many emails, so many things that are slipping through the cracks. I feel like I can't, I can't get a hold of any.

• 33:18Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I was talking to Savvy D about this recently and he's like, yeah, especially in LA. Like, I've noticed that people will often flake at the last minute. And they're like, oh, yeah, yeah, I I know we had something planned, but I can't make it. And really what they're saying is like, I double booked, triple booked. Or whatever, or I just found something that was more interesting. But also, there's a level of over committing. It's saying yes in the moment to something that you may not want to do a week from now, a month from now, or a year from now. Yeah, I'll go to your wedding in October. It's not even close to October right now, so I can, I could say yes now, but then October shows up. I'm like, wait a minute, I don't go to, I don't like weddings. Why did I say yes to this?

• 33:58Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Well, I said yes to it so that I could just get it off of, of my plate in the moment. It was an easy way to, to say, yeah, yeah, fine, whatever, whatever.

• 34:08Speaker 03

  I was drunk on the desire to get out of that conversation.

• 34:11Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, that's exactly it. And so I aspire to be that responsible person that you would want to call because I'll find a way to problem solve. Right? And my first thought was I'd call Nicodemus, but then he wouldn't answer the phone and I would just be in jail for the rest of my life. He'd try to call me back 17 minutes later and it would be too late.

• 34:34Joshua Fields Millburn?

  But no, I mean, I know.

• 34:35Speaker 03

  Who do you call?

• 34:36Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I, I think I would call him, but the reason I would call Nicodemus is because I would also trust him to call you and call my wife and call the other people. And he could, he could facilitate the help in a way where, and he also, he works, and this is not me at all, but he works really well in chaos. So giving him a chaotic problem like that, he would absolutely thrive.

• 34:59Speaker 03

  Right, like you don't want to call Nicodemus if you need him to print 10 copies in 10 minutes because he wouldn't do it. But if you needed like that kind of help, oh, he's the number one guy.

• 35:08Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, if I need one person to get me out of the third world prison.

• 35:11Speaker 03

  He's motivated.

• 35:12Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, he's, he's gonna find a way to do it.

• 35:15Speaker 03

  And have fun.

• 35:16Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes.

• 35:18Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I imagine putting the Rambo paint on his face right now. Let's do one more here. Claire said, "Family are the people that my mom says I'm not allowed to exclude from my wedding if I plan on having friends in attendance. FYI, we are paying for our own wedding reception and honeymoon." So I'm a bit disgruntled by this concept. Now, I can certainly understand why this would be frustrating. TK, how do you feel when someone tells you that you're not allowed to do something?

• 35:47Speaker 03

  I would say, what does that mean?

• 35:51Speaker 03

  What happens if I do it?

• 35:54Joshua Fields Millburn?

  But you would do it in a way that is super curious, right? And genuinely curious. So going to your mom and say, what does that mean? I'm not allowed?

• 36:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:04Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And just leaving it there. It's one of the hardest things to do is to not talk yourself out of the sale. You'll learn this when you're doing sales back when I was in the sales world. Learn when to shut up because just stopping with the question, what do you mean I'm not allowed? Interesting. But not in a dismissive or judgmental way because I get it. You're frustrated. But you show up with that frustration, you're just going to escalate the tension between you and your mother. Now, a quick thought experiment, another one for you here, TK. How many of your friends and family members would you swipe right on?

• 36:39Speaker 03

  What do you mean?

• 36:40Joshua Fields Millburn?

  So like, like dating apps, where you swipe swipe right on someone, that means you like them and you see them as a potential match. And there would be a great, I'm sure there's some sort of app like this already out there. But imagine if there was instead of a dating app, there was a friendship or family member app and like, I really like this person. And that is why they're showing up at Claire's wedding.

• 37:04Speaker 03

  Nah, nobody. I only, I'm only friends with ugly people.

• 37:09Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I'm not talking about their attractiveness.

• 37:11Speaker 03

  Me neither. I'm talking about their spiritual. I'm only friends with ugly people.

• 37:17Speaker 03

  I don't want any temptation around me. No, I'm just kidding. How many friends would I swipe? I don't know. That's an interesting question, man. I never thought about that.

• 37:23Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Well, the reason I ask it is because I feel like if there's anyone in my life now where I'm like, why are we friends? If I could redo this, would they be a friend in my life again? Well, that is a sign that I want to reprioritize the relationship. Now, that might mean if it's a toxic relationship and it's always draining me in a way, it might mean I want to get them out of my life altogether. But usually that's not it. It might mean that I've put them in that primary tier of relationship. And it's much better for me to to make them a secondary or peripheral friend in a way that honors them more, but also honors. My sanity at the same time.

• 37:58Speaker 03

  So maybe, maybe you want every friend to be somebody you'd swipe right on, but just maybe for a different thing, right? Some are not a long time, just a good time.

• 38:08Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Sure, yeah. And, and some of them are basketball friends and some of them are going to be, you know, spiritual, deep conversation friends. Some of them are coffee buddies, some of them are work friends. And we work on really meaningful things together, things that are important to both of us, right? And so when I talk about swiping right, it's really like, yeah, I'm interested in you as a friend or family member. And that's when we get back to the logical versus biological. The biological, I can't decide whether or not you're my family, right?

• 38:38Speaker 03

  Right.

• 38:38Joshua Fields Millburn?

  But I can decide how much time and energy that I give to that relationship. And if I would swipe left on this family member, it doesn't mean I need to shun them. It doesn't mean I need to grade them or talk badly about them. But it may mean that I don't want to spend as much time with them as I am right now.

• 38:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:58Joshua Fields Millburn?

  How about you listeners? How do you differentiate between friends and family? You can let us know your thoughts in the Patreon community chat, which by the way, you can join for free, even if you don't subscribe to our private podcast. All right. Give me something pithy TK. How do you differentiate between friends and family?

• 39:16Speaker 03

  Beer buddies aren't always battle brothers. Some people are great for grabbing a beer with, but some people are best for going to battle with. For me and my friends are people I can go grab a beer with, metaphorically speaking. We have a good time, we can have good conversation, whether it's superficial or sophisticated, and we enjoy one another's company for whatever reason. But then there's a spiritual battle that you have to fight in life in order to become who you're born to be. And my family are the people that are invested in that. It's a safe space for me to go and discuss who I am. And it's also a dangerous space because they are bold enough and loving enough to not merely accept me as I am, but to challenge me to be better and do better. And then I'm going to add another dimension to this.

• 40:01Speaker 03

  Think about you being a celebrity and imagine that you got canceled because of an association with controversy, fair or unfair. All those people that wanted your autograph, all those people that proudly associated with you and shared pictures they have with you on social media, they immediately disappear. Who's coming to see you to say, hey? You're doing okay? That's your family. That's your family. Think about all the celebrities now that everybody was proud to talk about five years ago, five months ago. Now you won't even mention their name because you would be afraid of what would happen to you just to admit that you ever liked one of their songs or one of their TV shows. Think about that person now. Most of us ain't talking about them. Most of us are running from it.

• 40:44Speaker 03

  Most of their people have taken those photos down. Who's the person that's reaching out to them being like, hey, you okay? You want to talk about this? That's family.

• 40:52Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And not kicking their back in at the same time. That that often happens. There's this appeal for concern, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. It it feels righteous like, oh, I'm I'm just as a good friend. I really want to step in here. And sometimes that is true. I want to step in and make sure that you're okay and provide some guidance if you're looking for it, helping you if you're asking for help, not forcing my help on you. I I think that's an important distinction, right? Who's who's showing up for you? Because before that, the the celebrity you're talking about, we all do this to some extent. We work really hard to impress people we've never met. And that is one of the diseases of of contemporaneity.

• 41:32Joshua Fields Millburn?

  It is, I'm going to be liked by people whom I will never know, whether it's on social media, or maybe they'll like the car that I'm driving in when I pull up, or maybe they'll like my outfit and therefore they might like me, but they don't like me. They like the superficialities. And as soon as I change that, they are going to cease to like me. But the other person you're talking about is showing up regardless of what you're wearing, what you're driving, what you own, or what you've done. And they're checking to see, how are you? I see you. I I love you. All right, that's almost the end of page one. We still have an entire switchboard of colors to talk to. But first, real quick for right here, right now, here's one thing that's going on in the life of the minimalist.

• 42:14Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Our next fams, our Friday afternoon minimalist Zoom is this Friday is June 6 at 3:00 PM Eastern. We do this on the first Friday of every month for our audio plus subscribers on Patreon. If you want the details, you can head on over to theminimalists.com/zoom. To find out the details of our next Friday afternoon minimal zoom, we kind of do this because we do these live events every month in Southern California, but obviously not everyone can come to a live event. They always sell out anyway, so they can't even get everyone who wants to show up into those events. And but we only do that once a month, and it's only in Southern California for now. And we do have people come from all over the world,

• 42:55Joshua Fields Millburn?

  from Europe and from Texas and from Canada and Mexico and all throughout California, Arizona and Iowa and New York and a bunch of other places. Gary in Chicago, he comes out all the time, right? But for the most part, people want to interact with us. And we gave them a platform to do that. And that is called our Friday afternoon minimal zoom, the first Friday of every month, heading over to theminimalists.com/zoom to find all the details. All right, here's a minimalist insight from one of our listeners.

• 43:26Speaker 04

  Hello, this is Brian from Oakhamis, Michigan. And I have a tip for what you can do with old, broken crayons. I teach art in an elementary school with just over 500 students. And as you might imagine, I go through a lot of crayons over the course of an average school year, as I teach my various lessons to my students. And from time to time, I feel the need to get rid of some of these excess crayons. It is a good idea to have some of these broken crayons on hand for my students to use. It's actually good exercise for the muscles in

• 44:05Speaker 04

  a child's hand to draw in color with broken crayons. But I accumulate these crayons way faster than I can ever use them. So from time to time, I need to get rid of the excess. I have found an organization that can recycle all these old crayons, and they are called the Crayon Initiative. And what they do is they melt down these old crayons, reform them into new ones, and then they donate them to children in hospitals, which is a beautiful thing.

• 44:40Speaker 04

  And it's really easy to donate to this organization. You could ship directly to them. You can find the directions on their website, or if you happen to have a Staples store near where you live, you can just drop your crayons off at the store and then they will ship them for you. So I hope this tip was helpful to all of you, whether you are an art teacher or not. Have a great day, everyone.

• 45:04Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Brian, thank you so much for that helpful comment. It makes me think we often hold on to broken things because we don't know what to do with them. But there's always a way to let go, even if those things are old, or broken, or damaged. And often, when we let go, there is a way to repurpose some of those things, so someone else can get value from them. Right now, it was trash for you, but now, because of the Crayon Initiative, which by the way, we'll put a link to that in the show notes, if anyone else wants to check that out. But there are other ways to let go of other things. I mean, I think the crayon here is sort of a metaphor for our broken things. I'm holding on to this, and it's obsolete for me. It's no longer adding value to me. But is there a way that

• 45:48Joshua Fields Millburn?

  this thing I'm holding on to can add value to someone else? For anyone else who has a listener tip, or insight about this episode, or any other episode, you can send a voice memo to [email protected], so we can feature your voice on the show. Up next, page two and page three. But first, let's take a quick pandiculation break. We'll be right back.

• 46:11Joshua Fields Millburn?

  All right, that's the first 33% of episode 493. We'll see you on Patreon for the full maximal edition, which includes answers to a bunch more questions. Questions like, "How can I stop being the yes man in my family?" "How can I let go of my closet clutter if it's linked to trauma from my past?" "What are the minimalist thoughts on punishing kids for bad behavior?" "How do I tackle the lingering boxes from my last move and finally achieve a peaceful living space?" Plus a million more questions and simple living segments over on the Minimalist Private Podcast on Patreon. And that is our minimal episode for today. Big thanks to Earthing Studios for the recording space. On behalf of Ryan Nicodemus, TK Coleman, post-production Peter, Spire Jeff, and Spire Dave, Professor

• 46:56Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Sean on the couch, and Savvy D on the board, and the rest of our team. I'm Joshua Fields Milburn. If you leave here with just one message, let it be this. Love people and use things because the opposite never works. Thanks for listening, y'all. We'll see you next time. Peace.

• 47:16Speaker 00

  Every little thing you think that you need. Every little thing you think that you need. Every little thing that's just feeding your greed. Oh, I bet that you'd be fine without it.