471 | Holiday Anxiety

The Minimalists dive deep into the anxiety that often accompanies the holiday shopping season. Discussed in this episode: How can I stop people from buying unnecessary Christmas gifts that clutter our home? (2:37) What fills your holiday season with anxiety and what do you do to minimize holiday clutter? (20:15) Listener tip: A helpful script for opting out of gift-giving during the holiday season. (42:34) 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.

• 0:39Speaker 01

  You're listening to the Minimalist Podcast with Joshua Fields Milburn and TK Coleman. Recorded live at Earthing Studios in sunny California.

• 0:47Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, thank you, Malibu. Hello, everybody. It's beginning to look a lot like shopping.

• 0:55Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 0:56Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Oh, don't ruin it, man. Don't ruin it.

• 0:59Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 0:59Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Doesn't that ruin it? The Christmas season, the holiday season, has become the holiday shopping season. We're going to talk about that today, but first, mistletoe alert. Uh oh, what? TK just got really uncomfortable really quick. Just kidding, there's no mistletoe here today. Today on the show, we're talking about the anxiety that is often a byproduct of the holidays. So coming up on this free, public minimal episode, a caller has a question about stopping her family from buying unnecessary Christmas gifts that just clutter her home. And we've got a lightning round question about minimizing holiday clutter.

• 1:40Joshua Fields Millburn?

  That's followed by our Right Here, Right Now segment and a beautiful listener tip. You can check out the maximal edition of episode 471. That's the full two-hour episode where we answer three times as many questions and we dive deep into several simple living segments. That private podcast is out now on Patreon. You can find the link down in the description. When you subscribe, you'll get a personal, private feed so that our weekly maximal episodes play in your favorite podcast app. Plus, you'll gain access to all of our Podcast archives all the way back to episode zero zero one. Big thanks to our patrons. Your support keeps our podcast 100% advertisement free because sing along at home, y'all. Advertisements suck.

• 2:24Joshua Fields Millburn?

  All right, let's start with our callers. If you have a question or comment for our show, we would love to hear from you. Give us a call. Our phone number is four zero six two one nine seven eight three nine, or you can email a voice recording right from your phone to podcast at theminimalists.com. Our first question today is from Rachel.

• 2:41Speaker 03

  Hi, Josh, Ryan, and TK. This is Rachel from Scotland. I'm a Patreon subscriber. Me and my husband recently, about a year ago, moved country with our two children. We've been into minimalism since 2018, so it took us years of hard work of decluttering and keeping it like that with two children. We moved to be closer to my family, and I have a feeling that my family feel like when they walked into our apartment, they kind of felt sympathy for us because we didn't have much. We lived with what we needed, what the children valued, and we were happy that way. But my family obviously didn't understand that. And on Christmas morning last year, my

• 3:25Speaker 03

  family walked through my door with at least 20 sacks of Christmas presents for the children. Our small living room looked like the storeroom of a toy shop. It was just filled with toys and nowhere to put them and boxes and clothes. And I can't tell you how many books, how many Legos, plastic balls, tents. My children were sharing a bedroom, and so it was very, very, very crazy. It took me months to get my mental and my physical clutter back on track. This year, I've already spoken to my family. I've said that I will let them know if there's anything that could add value physically into the children's lives for them to buy this Christmas.

• 4:10Speaker 03

  What are your views on Christmas clutter?

• 4:13Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Now TK, it'd be easy for me to just kick the back end of all of her family members and say, "How dare you disrupt her peace?" And by the way, she even talked about the mental clutter here. There is a mental health aspect. There's an anxiety aspect that we feel because we want other people in our life to be happy. And sometimes we're willing to sacrifice our own happiness, our own contentment, our own peace, our own well-being, our own mental health, in order to pacify the people around us. In short term, that can work out really well, but long term, it tends to be a disaster. So it'd be easy for me to say, "How dare you", but I want to give them some grace as well. Because when they show up with 20 sacks of gifts, I mean, that sounds overwhelming to me. And you know what? It was probably overwhelming

• 4:58Joshua Fields Millburn?

  to them as well. Going out and buying all those things, making those things, gift-wrapping those things, spending time and attention and energy and of course, money, maybe even going into debt for those things. And it may be that they're just not well-equipped to express their love in ways that haven't been created by marketers and advertisers that told them that the way that you should express your love, the way that you must express your love, especially during the holiday season, is to go shopping. It's no longer the holiday season, it's the holiday shopping season. And advertisers and marketers have done an amazing job making us feel inadequate for not consuming things, but during the holidays,

• 5:40Joshua Fields Millburn?

  they make us feel even more inadequate. Because in order to show you your love, you must buy the best things, the most expensive things, the nicest things, the unique things, the different things, to show our love. And so that gets to the heart of Rachel's question, which is, "How can I stop my family from buying unnecessary Christmas gifts that clutter our home?"

• 6:07Speaker 04

  Well, it makes me think about this episode of Blackish, where the husband Dre and his wife Bo, he sees her in a conversation with a guy that he doesn't really enjoy talking to. And she's laughing and he assumes his wife is doing a fake laugh to give courtesy to this guy. But he starts acting in all sorts of weird ways in order to save his wife from this conversation. And she's looking at him like, what in the world is wrong with you? He just keeps doing weirder and weirder things until he talks to her later and realizes she actually enjoyed the conversation and wanted to be there. But he assumed, because that guy made him miserable, that he needed to save his wife from the same kind of misery. And therein lies the presumptuousness of pity. So many times, we look at other people with pity. Oh, I feel bad for them.

• 6:51Speaker 04

  They don't have enough stuff. And we're assuming that our unhappiness is their unhappiness and our joy is their joy. And we try to save them from something that they don't want to be saved from. And that's clearly what happened here, right? The family comes over. They see you don't have any stuff. And they think, oh, since our lives are defined by the accumulation of stuff, you must be sad. You must feel like something is lacking. And they didn't realize that what they saw as insufficiency was really your intentional adventurous life. And I think there's room to be sympathetic for it, towards it. I tell that story from Blackish because I like the way they depicted it with the sense of humor. We all have been guilty of doing this. And sometimes we're on the giving end as well as the receiving end.

• 7:35Speaker 04

  And when people try to help you, when they try to save you, even if they're misguided, there's room to say, you know what? You're getting it completely wrong. You're making things so much worse. But at least you were trying. And I will call that out before I call out the bad behavior. I will call that out and make that the foundation. But what you have to do here, when people do this kind of thing, you just have to gently spell out the inconvenience that you suffered from it. Like, hey, I appreciate you getting me all that stuff, but I didn't have anything in my place for a reason that I wanted it. And when you gave me that stuff, it took me several months and several hours to get rid of it. And I was miserable the whole time. And I truly hope I never have to go.

• 8:16Speaker 04

  Go through that again. So please help me out. Next time, if you're gonna bring something in like that, ask me first.

• 8:22Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And also letting them know, look, I know it wasn't your intention to cause any sort of anxiety in my life. I know what you were doing there was trying to add value, contribute to me in some way. That's not the best way to contribute, however. Now, there was something interesting here about the, they came to our house, we didn't have a whole lot because we've minimized since 2018. We spent six or seven years simplifying our lives. And now we don't have much, and for them, they look at it almost with pity. It'd be like if I came here in my 10-year-old Toyota and Mallory is like, I really feel pity for you that you don't have a Lamborghini.

• 9:02Joshua Fields Millburn?

  That's exactly, that would be my response. I would laugh it off, right? Because I'd be like, wow, what a strange expectation that she has. And not strange to be dismissive, but it's easy for me to dismiss something like that because I recognize that my happiness is not tied up in a luxury vehicle. It doesn't mean that I think you're wrong if you go out and you buy one. And also, it doesn't mean I think that the rest of her family is wrong for wanting gifts or buying gifts for other family members. We don't want to demonize it or prescribe, here's the way to do it. You completely opt out of the holidays, no matter what. Bah humbug. That's not the spirit we want to approach that with as well. And sometimes it feels like a binary. It's either celebrating the holidays, which means mass accumulation, it means overconsumption, it means consumerism.

• 9:46Joshua Fields Millburn?

  That's the only way to celebrate a holiday, or it is being Scrooge. Insane bah humbug to the holidays and what is wrong with these kids today? And all of their, their Christmas gifts and these toys and this nonsense. And of course, there's this whole middle area. It is possible to celebrate the holidays without, without going overboard on consumption. And so when I think about things that are useful to me as a, as a gift giver and a gift receiver, I often tell people what I'm saying yes to instead of just saying no. People hate hearing "no." Now, sometimes you do have to say "no."

• 10:30Joshua Fields Millburn?

  There's a strong boundary where "no" is a complete sentence. If a stranger walks up to my house right now and says, "Hey, can I come into your house?" No. And "no" is enough, and that is fine. Now, I could say "yes," but for me, "no" is a perfectly acceptable answer. But for people who are close to me, that I love, I would rather find ways to tell them "yes." "You know what? We'd love to contribute to you during the holidays. We want to get you a gift." Instead of me just saying "no," say, "Yeah, you know what? What about a really great experience? There's this concert I've been wanting to go to. In fact, this Christmas, I bought my daughter Dua Lipa tickets to a Dua Lipa concert. That's like next September, so it's going to, it's a while away. And so she gets to look forward to it all year as well.

• 11:15Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I remember when it first went on sale, she was excited, and I saw the prices, and I'm like, "Oh, yeah, that's pretty expensive for a Dua Lipa concert. Wow, okay." I said, "Well, we'll think about it." And then I went and got the tickets, and I put them in a box and wrapped it up. And so she's getting something that apes the form of a physical gift, but she will open it, and the concert tickets will be in there. I'm gifting her an experience. Or what about consumables? Could be something as simple as chocolate, or coffee, or a bottle of wine, or a dinner together. Maybe it's a home-cooked meal. There are a bunch of ways that we can share an experience with someone, and you can even wrap it up in a way that mimics the physical gift. And you can even put it under your Christmas tree,

• 12:00Joshua Fields Millburn?

  and you're subtly opting out of that experience. You're subtly opting out of the gift-giving obligation. Here is a physical good. When Nicodemus is on the show and he talks about gift-giving, I love that he talks about how unintentional most gift-giving is. When he used to go Christmas hunting for gifts, he would just go to the mall, the Dayton Mall, which was right down the street from where he lived, and he would go shopping for inspiration. "Oh, there's something my boss might like, and there's something my girlfriend might like, and there's something..." My mom might like and here's something from my dad and my brother and my sister and my other brother and my cousins and my employees.

• 12:43Joshua Fields Millburn?

  You are shopping for inspiration, but that's the opposite of being intentional. It's allowing advertisers, marketers and corporations to identify what your needs are. And then sell those things to you and often going into debt. We're approaching a thousand dollars spent per person at Christmas. Just a few years ago was $636 and now we are over. Or we're getting really close to a thousand dollars that we're spending on these things. And that's not, you're not wrong for doing that, but the question is, am I doing that just out of obligation? Or am I doing it because I feel like I'm being intentional with my holidays?

• 13:21Speaker 04

  That's so good. One thing I've become a fan of in the past few years is recognizing that I don't have to participate in something directly. In order to leverage other people's participation towards something good that I believe in. So for, for example, at my church, they have a gift drive where there are a number of different families and underprivileged people. Who could use something, whether it's Christmas or not. And people can sign up on a volunteer basis and you're usually encouraged to, you know, anywhere from 25 to $50. You, here's a list of things, like a wish list of things like, hey, here's a kid, here's a mom that would love to get her kid something like a baseball or a basketball. Here's a family that could use a new pair of shoes, size seven.

• 14:02Speaker 04

  And you can buy something and donate it and then it gets to that family or that person who might have a need. And so there's this idea that you and I've talked about before where someone says to you, hey, man, what are you doing on Saturday? And instead of giving them the list of all the things you're doing on Saturday, you simply say, tell me what, what it is you need. And they go, can I talk to you on the phone for 30 minutes at this time? And then you can just give them a yes or no, because that's what the really, that's what the conversation is really about, right? And in a similar way, when someone tries to give you a gift, instead of giving a whole long-winded presentation about your lifestyle and what you need. You can just recognize what is it that you need? You're giving me this gift for a reason. What's going on? I just wanna, I just wanna feel like I'm doing something for you.

• 14:46Speaker 04

  I appreciate that. Let me leverage that towards something else that I believe in. Cause I don't need that gift. I don't want that gift, but you know what? We live in a world where there are a ton of people who do need things and they need things even when it's not Christmas. And since Christmas is a time where people are motivated to give, let me go ahead and take that from you. So that I can give it to this person over here. Can you donate money to this charity in my name? Can you donate a gift to this drive in my name? Or can you get me something from this list and I'll be the one to drive it over to the church? I'm happy to take advantage of the fact that there are people who know me and love me and want to give me things. So that I can circulate that wealth, redistribute it to someone else who can actually use it.

• 15:24Joshua Fields Millburn?

  There are two charities that I often have people donate to in my name. If they're looking to give me a gift, I'd say, oh, I'd love a gift. Here are my two favorite charities. The Against Malaria Foundation, which you can donate to at givewell.org. And I donate to them every month anyway, but if someone wants to give extra money for that, outstanding. I just have it automated, so I don't even think about it now. I kind of treat it like a contribution tax. And every, every month I just have some money come out of my account that goes to givewell.org. And then beyond that Charity Water has been a great partner of the minimalist. We've built a bunch of wells with Charity Water over the years. And if someone ever wants to give me some money or give me a gift, it doesn't just have to be a holiday gift.

• 16:07Joshua Fields Millburn?

  It could be a birthday gift or any other time of the year. I often just say, yes, a gift would be wonderful. You can pick either one of these charities. Which one is most compelling to you? And what are they going to say? No, screw you. I hate charity. Of course not. The, the reason someone's giving you a gift is because they want to contribute to you in some way. They want to show you that they care.

• 16:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:32Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And one of the ways they show you they care is through contribution. It's not about the physical gift itself. That becomes an avatar for their caring. And of course, I would much prefer you gave money to give well or to Charity Water than if you bought me a new pair of cuff links. Because cuff links will just get in the way. If something gets in the way, then it's clutter. If something gets in the way of your holidays, like this gift giving experience, which creates anxiety, then it is holiday clutter. Anything that gets in the way of the holidays is holiday clutter. And for me, that is shopping in general. The holiday shopping season is the very thing that ruined the joy of the holidays for me because it felt like an obligation now.

• 17:16Joshua Fields Millburn?

  It no longer felt like a celebration. Rachel, I'd love to send you all four copies of the minimalist books. We have minimalism, we have essential, we have my favorite, everything that remains, which has a beautiful new cover on it. And of course, love people use things as well. If you want the print books, or I'll be happy to send those to you. They are great stocking stuffers, by the way. Of course, it's the only book that you'll ever read that will show you how to let go of it once, once you have read it. So if you want a copy of all four of those books, we'll make sure we send them to you. A lot of people are asking us, but is there a sale price during the holidays? Is there like a 50% off on Black Friday or during December? And there is a special right now.

• 18:01Joshua Fields Millburn?

  You pay full price. They're full price throughout the year. They're full price during the holidays. I'm always a bit skeptical when I see something that's half off for Black Friday. It's like, wait, were you ripping everyone else off the other 364 days a year? Or is this just a marketing tactic that is designed to get people to shop on impulse? And I know because I used to run 150 retail stores. We did a lot of things to incentivize people to come into our stores between Thanksgiving and Christmas. In fact, 40% of our revenue for the year was brought in the last two months of the year. Most of that was between Black Friday and Christmas. And how did we do that? Well, we had special deals.

• 18:46Joshua Fields Millburn?

  We had these free standing inserts we put in the newspapers. We put radio ads and television ads and internet ads. And we would have these special discounts. And it would get someone in the door. And so, once they're in the door, it was our job to sell them everything else that was in the store as well. So, those are sort of the on-ramp to get someone into the store, these discounts. They'd end up making you spend way more money, once you're in the door. So, all four of our books are available at full price. They make great gifts, all throughout the year, including during Christmas. You can check out Minimalism, which tends to sell best around Christmas time, as a matter of fact. Everything That Remains is my favorite book with a beautiful new cover.

• 19:29Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Essential is an essay collection, 150 essays from the minimalists, and our most recent book, Love People Use Things. Before we get back to our callers, Malibu, what time is it?

• 19:38Speaker 01

  You know what time it is. It's time for the lightning round, where we answer the Patreon community chat's question of the week.

• 19:44Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, indeed. Now, during the lightning round, we have 60 seconds to answer your question with a short, shareable, minimal maxim. You can find this episode's maxims in the show notes at theminimalists.com/podcast. 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 up for our email newsletter, at theminimalists.e-mail. We'll never send you spam, or junk, or ads, but we will start your week off with a dose of simplicity. What's the question of the week this week?

• 20:17Speaker 01

  What fills your holiday season with anxiety? And what do you do to minimize holiday clutter?

• 20:22Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Ah, what fills your holiday season with anxiety? Well, I've talked about some things that make me feel anxious, the shopping, and we'll talk about our pithy answers here in a moment. But first, let's hear how some of our listeners answered this question.

• 20:35Speaker 01

  Lorna said, keeping the calendar simple allows us to relax and reduce holiday anxiety.

• 20:41Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, one of the things that used to create the most holiday anxiety for me, TK, I'm thinking back to 2007, during my first marriage, my lovely, amazing, former spouse, Carrie. She, um, she had a big family, from Kentucky. And we're in southern Ohio, at the time, and I remember there was one Christmas, where we had four Christmas dinners. To go to. And so it was like a round robin, or actually it was a musical chairs of Christmas dinners. Because we had to now, keep in mind, I worked in the corporate world then I had three days off a year because I was in retail. We our stores were closed on Christmas and Thanksgiving and Easter, and that was it.

• 21:24Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I worked all 362 other days of the year. And so you would think that one day that I get off in December, I really want to relax on this one. Nope, it was a marathon of Christmas festivities. And it really filled my calendar and my day with anxiety. And we didn't know, especially as an introvert. For me, I was just like, ah, I guess this is what you're supposed to do. But if we're only doing what we're supposed to do for the holidays, what other people dictate? It often makes us makes us quite anxious.

• 21:54Speaker 04

  Man, I even felt some of that pressure on my own birthday. I just wanted to relax and do nothing. But I was worried about the story. Well, I don't want my wife to look like she didn't do anything for me. People are going to ask me, what did you do? And if I say nothing, that's going to be pretty boring. Now, eventually I got over all of that and gave myself permission to just do nothing. But that pressure can creep in even on a day that is supposed to be about just you.

• 22:16Joshua Fields Millburn?

  There's this societal pressure. There's also the pressure that that same societal pressure is amplified by the advertisements of the holiday season. Here's how you're supposed to celebrate. Here's how you're supposed to consume. Here's how you're supposed to show your love. And then, of course, here's how you are supposed to spend your holiday. Look at the picture, the advertisement. Here's how the family is enjoying their holiday. Unless you do it exactly like this, that's the recipe for a happy holiday. And so if you're not doing this, what you want to have a miserable holiday? What did Lori say?

• 22:48Speaker 01

  I get through the holidays anxiety free by finishing my shopping in October and packing packing boxes to mail out early in November. Once everything is in the mail, I can relax and enjoy the holiday season by making my own cards with photos I take locally and sending them to friends, each calligraphy with a personal message.

• 23:07Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I love that there's this hobby aspect, there's this creative aspect, it's not just about consumption, but I also love that this works really well for Lori, because it sounds really stressful for me. If you prescribed this to me and I had to write out all of my own cards and I had to do shopping in advance and all of these things, that recipe wouldn't necessarily work for me, but it sounds quite meaningful for Lori. What else we got?

• 23:32Speaker 01

  Amina said, "Asking and telling has generally reduced most of my Christmas anxiety. This year, I wanted a record player, so I decided I would buy myself the player and ask my family to surprise me with a record of their choice. It's a way of me creating a boundary so I don't receive gifts I don't want whilst still making them feel involved in gifting something that will add value to me within their budgets."

• 23:55Joshua Fields Millburn?

  How wonderful is that? Because what you're saying is you have autonomy, you get to decide what kind of music do you think I'll find value in, but also it is a unique gift because you are choosing it. I'm not saying buy me the record player, I got the record player, and so now you get to buy whatever records you think will add value to my life. What else we got?

• 24:18Speaker 01

  This one comes from Ann. "I make gifts throughout the year, homemade ornaments, decorations, etc., so I've been able to turn my hobby into gifts. This allows me to continue my hobbies and give it as a gift to someone who actually wants it."

• 24:31Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I like this because you're thinking throughout the year, how can I contribute with my creativity? Not how can I contribute with my wallet, what is the quickest way to go shopping for inspiration, but how can I use my creativity to contribute to the people I love?

• 24:48Speaker 04

  And that's how you make every day Christmas?

• 24:49Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Ah, yes.

• 24:51Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 24:51Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Especially if you throw on some Christmas music every day like TK. What else, Bama?

• 24:56Speaker 01

  This one comes from Tim. "The thing I don't like doing is decorating, so now I pull up a fireplace on the TV and put on winter-themed music and maybe change our under-cabinet lighting to a different color as a bonus. Now the seasonal spirit is in the simple press of a button."

• 25:12Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I do this with our TV all the time, usually in the mornings if I'm reading and it's cold outside. To read outside generally, but if it's cold up in Ojai, like this morning, it was 40 degrees. And so I'm not going to sit outside when it's 40 degrees out. But you know what? I just turn on the TV. I put on a Zen Garden, like an actual like two hour video of Zen Garden just raking the the sand and it's meditative and I'll put on some meditative music as well. But I'll switch it up for the holidays. All throughout the holidays, Ella, my daughter and I, we we often like pick what the screensaver we want to be on the TV. And so we go through YouTube and it's like she wants to get like a Christmas themed apartment that is on the 50th floor of

• 25:52Joshua Fields Millburn?

  a New York City building. And, and so it's it. What's nice is that creates an experience together. But also, I don't have to put up a ton of decorations. We do get a Christmas tree and, and we decorate the Christmas tree. Personally, I wouldn't do that if I was living by myself. It's just not something that is super compelling to me. But I also recognize it's compelling to my family and I really enjoy creating that experience with them. So many other people responded to this topic. You can read dozens of other listener responses in the Patreon community chat. Did you know you can join our Patreon community chats for free? Of course, we'd love for you to support our work financially. But if you can't afford the private podcast episodes,

• 26:32Joshua Fields Millburn?

  you can still join our community chats by becoming a free member on Patreon. The link is down in the description. How about you listeners? What fills your holiday season with anxiety? And what do you do to minimize holiday clutter? Let us know in the comments. Okay, give me something pithy TK. What fills your holiday season with anxiety? And what do you do to minimize holiday clutter?

• 26:57Speaker 04

  Clarity, boundaries, and grace clear the way for a clutter free holiday. For me, the anxiety and the way out all has to do with how we deal with people. So many people questions at holidays like. Did I give enough? Did I receive enough? Did I do enough? Am I enough? Did I handle that well enough? Was I considerate and loving enough? Was I selfless enough or selfish enough? And when you don't have the right answer to those questions or any sense of reasonable certainty about how you're coming down on that, it can give rise to a lot of anxiety. And so for me, it's about clarity, boundaries and grace. Clarity, how do I want to show up for others? And how do I need to show up for myself

• 27:41Speaker 04

  in order to be able to actually do that? Boundaries, what can I realistically do? What can I not do? What do I refuse to do? What am I unable to do? And then grace, recognizing that everybody at some level or other is simply doing what they sincerely believe is best, even if that's different from what I would do. And so to always praise the effort, to always affirm the effort, even if it has to be contextualized by me establishing a healthy boundary.

• 28:09Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I want to dive into both sides of that for a moment before I get to my pithy answer, because I like what you said there about what do I refuse to do? Also, what am I unable to do? You know, if Mallory Kennedy said, Josh, I really want a Christmas gift from you. Can you buy me that Lamborghini that I was laughing at you for not having a moment ago? I mean, it wouldn't be that I just refused to do it. I couldn't possibly do it, right?

• 28:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's an unable to do. I would if I could, but I'm unable to do that.

• 28:35Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Right, right. And even then, I would be like, wait a minute. A Lamborghini for Christmas? That seems, even that seems like a wild expectation, right?

• 28:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:43Joshua Fields Millburn?

  But okay, let's at least think about it. But you're asking for something that I can't possibly do, right? But on the other side of that, I'm wondering TK, what do you enjoy? Do you enjoy getting? Because you're a guy who celebrates Christmas all year round. You listen to Christmas music every day of the year. But during the actual holiday season and on Christmas Day specifically, do you enjoy getting gifts? And what kind of gifts do you like getting?

• 29:09Speaker 04

  So I don't know if I really enjoy getting gifts that much. Because I mean, I usually give myself what I want throughout the year. And that's all I want is really one thing, and that's books. And you can buy me books any time of the year, right? And at this point in my life, my place is so small, I gotta say no. I can't really receive any new books. So I'm okay. But for the exciting part-

• 29:32Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Can we pause on that for a moment? Because I think where you are right, right there is how a lot of people feel. Even though we feel obligated to give gifts, we also feel obligated to get gifts, to receive them graciously, right? And to hold on to them even if we don't necessarily get value from them. And so where we're at right now is we've developed this culture of a lot of people, outside of children. I understand why a lot of kids want gifts during the holidays. But as adults, we've set up this culture where most of us don't like receiving gifts. Most of us think of it as a chore to go out and obligatorily gift shop for other people. And yet, we've set it up in a way where that's just what you're supposed to do. So that's what you have to do.

• 30:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, I also think that people are more accepting of how you show up and how you don't show up, if you're consistent with it. We all have that person in our family that we don't expect things from, even though we expect it of everyone else because we've accepted, that's just Katie, that's just Jim, you know? And, and we know that we can't negotiate them, and they are how they are. And we love them anyway, and we live with them anyway. And so I think if you play that game, and then for the first time ever, you're like, hey, I'm not gonna do that. Of course, people are gonna react in some kind of way, because that's surprising. And sometimes that's the price you have to pay for change. The short-term efforts that people make to negotiate with you, the short-term lack of trust that you're really gonna stick to your guns on that, that's always a part of change.

• 30:59Speaker 04

  But if you be consistent and you be intentional about it, people will eventually accept how you are. Also, for me, I don't quibble over receiving gifts. I, I don't say this with a judgmental attitude, but I, I've come to the point where I believe that being in a position where there's someone that actually wants to buy you something is a really, really rare position to be in. And it's a beautiful thing to be in, a beautiful position to be in. There are a lot of people out there who would kill to have someone that thinks of them and would buy them something.

• 31:29Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 31:29Speaker 04

  There are a lot of people that are terribly lonely. They have no one that's even gonna remember them. And then you just think about all the homeless people that you walk by every day. And I'm not trying to be sentimental with it. And so- For me, if someone's going to give me a bunch of gifts, I'll figure it out. I even just through my moves, I realize that stuff ain't that hard to get rid of, especially when it's brand new. You know, if something's beat down and worn out and you've worn that sweater a whole bunch of times, you still can probably get rid of that. But you give me something that's new and packaged up? Go ahead. I'm telling you not to do it, but go ahead. I'll, I'll be Santa Claus and I'll figure that out. And just with a few conversations with a few different community organizations and churches that won't even require me to do anything other than pick up my phone and dedicate 15 minutes to it.

• 32:13Speaker 04

  I'm going to find someone who needs it and I'll get it to them. So I'll never complain about receiving gifts. It's a privileged position to be in and God knows what life would be like if I didn't have that.

• 32:24Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Right, right. I'm thinking about a couple of things here. And this goes back to Rachel's question from earlier. And then it ties in with what you're saying here. Part of it is we do a poor job of training our friends and family what we want. Setting that expectation is either I don't want something or I would love for you to donate to a charity in my name or I'd love to get concert tickets with you. I'd love to just go on a sunset walk on the beach. That'd be a great gift. Can you put it in an envelope for me and wrap it up in a really big box and bring it over? Something like that. What we're doing is we're retraining our friends and family and loved ones because otherwise they're being trained by the media. They're being trained by advertisements. They're being trained by the Santa industrial complex to, well,

• 33:08Joshua Fields Millburn?

  and that complex is making us stressed out and it's making us feel anxious. And that brings me to my pithy answer here, which is we went from celebrating Christmas to surviving the holidays the moment the holiday season became the holiday shopping season. Not that long ago, I felt as a kid like I was celebrating the holidays. But now I hear a language all the time like, just gotta get through this holiday season. Oh, we just gotta make it to the new year as though we're just going to grit our teeth, hold on tight and we gotta make it through this holiday season. Is the opposite of what the spirit. Of the holidays is, we can enjoy the decorations, we can enjoy the snow,

• 33:53Joshua Fields Millburn?

  or if you're here in LA, the fake snow. You can enjoy the accoutrement of the holiday season without it having to stress us out, without us feeling like, oh, I need to survive another day of shopping. Anything else to add to that?

• 34:11Speaker 04

  I just want to know if you've ever been in a situation where you were on the receiving end of people who were imposing stressful holiday activities on you and how you handled it?

• 34:21Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, absolutely. In fact, I'm going to talk about that on page two. Dustin has a great question about the best gift to buy a minimalist? And I don't think the answer to that is nothing. Buy me nothing, right? Because that is a refusal. That is renouncing gift giving. And as Anthony DeMello says, as soon as you renounce a thing, you're forever tied to it. And it's my hope that I'm not renouncing gifts during this conversation, but it's also my hope that I'm being more intentional about the holiday season and recognizing that it's not just about gifts. It's also not about the holiday commitments. It's not about surviving the holidays, because that takes you out of the present moment. It actually takes you out of the holiday spirit altogether.

• 35:03Joshua Fields Millburn?

  So yes, I will answer that for you on page two. We're coming to the end of page one here. We still have an entire switchboard of callers to talk to on pages two and three. But first, real quick for right here, right now, a little segment we do where we talk about one thing that's going on in the life of the minimalist, but I have way more than one thing. It's the holiday season, TK. And coming up this Friday, we have our final FAMs of the year. What is FAMs? It is the Friday afternoon minimalist Zoom call. Malabama is there, Savvy D is there, Nicodimus is there, TK and I are there. We hop on a Zoom call with our Patreon supporters, and we could talk about the holidays. We could talk about whatever you want.

• 35:45Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Turn your camera on, or you can just turn your camera off, be a fly on the wall, but you can have a Zoom call with the minimalist. We'd love to see you there. Patreon.com/theminimalist if you want to join us. It's this Friday, 3 PM Eastern. Also, if you can't attend, you can watch the recording afterward.

• 36:03Speaker 04

  It's the final FAMs of the year.

• 36:09Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Well, speaking of minimalist gift giving.

• 36:13Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I often think about gift giving, less is more. That doesn't mean none is more, but how can I be intentional, right? I think about this conversation I had with Derek Sivers. He did one of our live events back in 2017. And he talked about how he was a minimalist, but he didn't want to force minimalism on his kid. And so, one day, he went out and he bought this box of toys. And he realized that his son would get so much value from those toys, he'd be depriving him without that box of toys. And my question to him was, "Okay, totally agree with that. Now, if you went out and bought your son 10 boxes of toys, do you think he'd get 10 times the value?" He said, "Well, no, I think those toys would get in the way." And I think that's where clutter comes from.

• 36:58Joshua Fields Millburn?

  It's the things that get in the way of the important things. And I think that's true with the holidays as well, with respect to gift giving. And you may be asking, "I'm looking for some best practices on giving gifts as a minimalist." I've got two resources for you. One is we have a free minimalist rulebook you can download at our website, theminimists.com/rulebook. And it's 16 rules for living with less. But two of those rules, there's the minimalist gift-getting rule and the minimalist gift-giving rule. This minimalist gift-giving rule talks about consumables and experiences and gives you a bunch of examples that you can gift as experiences. But then there's the minimalist gift-getting rule.

• 37:37Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And it's like, as a minimalist, I actually ask for better gifts now, more intentional gifts. So you can download that ebook for free. If you want the audiobook version, you can check that out as well. And then we just created this minimalist gift-giving playlist for you on YouTube. And you can enjoy it 100% advertisement-free as our gift to you. We'll put a link to that in the show notes over at theminimists.com/podcast. And speaking of gifts, our friends at Patreon just made it possible to gift a subscription of the Minimalist Private Podcast to anyone.

• 38:16Joshua Fields Millburn?

  So if you know a parent, or a sibling, a child, a friend, a family member, a coworker, or even a stranger... Who might benefit from our private podcast, you can visit the page over at patreon.com/theminimalists/gift. We'll put a link to that in the show notes as well. Patreon.com/theminimalists/gift. And you can gift a month, or several months, or a year of the minimalist private podcast. Many of you have been asking for this for several years. And we've been working with Patreon. In fact, I think we're the first account to have this gifting experience that they have created, because we've been working with them for a while now. So if you want to give someone the gift of less, consider gifting them a

• 39:01Joshua Fields Millburn?

  subscription to the minimalist private podcast on Patreon. And if you'd like to get us a gift, and you maybe, maybe you missed TK's birthday last month, or you missed Nicodemus's birthday the month before that, and you say, I really want to give a gift to the minimalist. They've been such a gift to me. Well, if you'd like to give us a holiday gift, then you can review our podcast on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify. And we would love for you to give us a five-star rating as a Christmas gift for us. It's, it's quite the experience. You don't have to give us a, a physical gift. You don't have to mail anything to our studio. You have to give us the gift of your time and attention. And we're grateful, because your listenership is the best

• 39:43Joshua Fields Millburn?

  gift of all. One more thing for you, Sunday Symposium. We do these, the final Sunday of each month here in Southern California, the final Sunday Symposium of the year is Sunday, December 29. Tickets just became available. It's limited to fewer than 200 people. And so every month, we have this community gathering, a simple gathering for simple people. We meet at 11:00 AM. We have a beautiful sound bath. We have some free coffee, and you get to meet other open-minded and like-minded people. Some people are minimalist. Some people are simplifying their lives. You just get to meet some really lovely people. We'd love to see you at our final Sunday Symposium of the year. The theme of this one is letting go of the past

• 40:28Joshua Fields Millburn?

  year. The anxieties of the past year, the stuff that's been accumulated from the past year, the stories that you've told yourself over the past year. So that we can make room for a new beginning. This is the final Sunday of the year, December 29th, 11 a.m. Head on over to sundaysymposium.com to see if tickets are still available. If they're not, make sure you get on the waitlist and we'll let you know if more tickets open up. One more thing, you can start your year off with less, less clutter, less emotional clutter, less psychological clutter, less physical clutter, less career clutter, less relationship clutter. You can book a clutter counseling session with TK Coleman over at theminimalists.com.

• 41:12Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Just click counseling there at the top and you could find a session. He'll spend an hour with you either here in Los Angeles or most people just work with him via Zoom. He'll spend an hour helping you uncover the things that it makes sense to let go of. So you can live a bit lighter, a bit more simply in the new year. Also, a quick programming note, we have no podcast episode next week. We're recording this right before Thanksgiving. We're closing the studio next week to give folks some time off, but we will be back the following week with a brand new episode. However, if you are a Patreon subscriber, we have a little bonus for you next Monday. We're going to release our most recent Sunday Symposium we did.

• 41:56Joshua Fields Millburn?

  We just did a whole Sunday Symposium about the anxiety that is in the air recently. We talked about the three types of anxiety. TK told us, he told three amazing stories about things that have made him anxious over the years. And so we talked a lot about anxiety and letting go of that anxiety and what does that look like? If you're a Patreon subscriber, we usually release our live events to the top tier, the true fan tier, but all of our patrons will have access to our most recent Sunday Symposium recording. We're going to release that as a podcast episode next Monday on December 9th. So you, if you support us, you'll still have something to listen to in the meantime. Malabam, what else you got for us?

• 42:36Speaker 01

  Here's a minimalist insight from one of our listeners.

• 42:38Speaker 05

  For any listeners out there struggling to tell their family or friends they want to opt out of gift giving or receiving for the holiday season, I sent the following text message to my loved ones, quote, "Hey there, I would like to try something new for Christmas this year and opt out of gift giving and receiving. I will still get the children and the family gifts, but I would like to request no gifts from the adults for Christmas." Instead, I prefer to spend quality time with you over the holiday break. If your heart's desire is to still contribute, then I suggest donating to my search and rescue mountaineering volunteer team. I am trying to consume less and hope you understand. End quote. I shared with them what I did not want, what I did want instead, and also gave them

• 43:21Speaker 05

  an opportunity to still contribute in a meaningful way by donating. The message was well received and everyone was supportive of my preference. Even if they weren't on board with my preference, that is okay, too. I sent this text message in late October to set the expectations well in advance of the holidays. I hope this helps. Stay wonderful.

• 43:41Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Bonnie, thank you so much for that lovely and helpful tip. I like that there's like a script there that it's like a recipe that you can take that recipe, you can add your own ingredients, tweeze things out, and you can make it yours when you're communicating your holiday wish list, or maybe anti-holiday wish list, to your friends and family. You're setting those expectations well in advance. We'll talk more about that over on Patreon. For anyone else has a listener tip or insight about this episode, you can leave a comment on YouTube or on Patreon, or better yet, send a voice memo to [email protected], just like Bonnie did, so we can feature your voice on the show. All right, that's the first 37% of episode 471.

• 44:23Joshua Fields Millburn?

  We'll see you on Patreon for the full maximal edition, which includes answers to a bunch more questions. Questions like, what's the best gift to buy a minimalist? And maybe it's the gift of nothing, although we're gonna talk about some actual gifts to give to a minimalist. When does holiday participation morph into holiday consumerism? Like, if I have to dress up for 12 different days, for 12 different Christmas parties, is that gonna stress me out? Is that holiday consumerism? Am I forced to participate? Also, what makes us afraid of facing the internal clutter that is hiding beneath all of that physical clutter? Plus, we've got a million more questions and simple living segments over on The Minimalist's private podcast on Patreon.

• 45:05Joshua Fields Millburn?

  By the way, Patreon is now offering free trials, so if you'd like to test drive our private podcast, you can join for seven ...days for free. The link is in the description. And that is our minimal episode for today. Big thanks to Earthing Studios for the recording space. On behalf of Ryan Nicodemus, TK Coleman, Malabama, post-production Peter, Spire Jeff, and Spire Dave, Savvy D on the board over there, 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.

• 45:40Speaker 01

  We'll see you next time.

• 45:41Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Peace. Merry Christmas.

• 45:43Speaker 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.