487 | Frustrations

The Minimalists get brutally honest about the people, places, and things that frustrate the hell out of us. Discussed in this episode: What can I do if my sister is so upset with me that she refuses to communicate? (2:17) What frustrating expectations do your family, friends, or coworkers have of you? (18:28) Listener tip: Considerately letting go of kids' clothes and toys. (41:33) 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?

  Oh, it's frustrating how sunny it is today. So bright. Oh, I'm so frustrated. Thank you, Alabama. Hello, everybody. Today on the show, we're talking about the people, places, and things that frustrate the hell out of us. Coming up on this free public minimal episode, a caller has a question about her sister, who is so upset that she refuses to talk to her. And then we've got a question about the frustrating expectations that your family, friends, and coworkers have of you. That's followed by our Right Here, Right Now segment and a listener tip. You can check out the maximal edition of episode 487. That's the full two-hour episode where we answer three times as many questions on Patreon. The link is in the description.

• 1:32Joshua Fields Millburn?

  When you subscribe, you can listen to our private podcast episodes on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or your favorite podcast app. Plus, you'll gain access to all of our archives, all the way back to episode 001. That's a full decade of podcast 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. And they're so freaking frustrating. We'll talk about that on the Sucky Ads segment on page three. But first, let's start with our callers. If you have a question or comment for our show, we would love to hear from you. Our phone number is 406-219-7839, or you can email a voice recording to [email protected].

• 2:17Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Our first question today is from Hannah.

• 2:20Speaker 03

  Greetings, minimalists. My name is Hannah from Michigan. And first of all, I just want to say thank you so much for all of your little snippets, your podcasts, your videos, everything you send through email. I love every single one and I get value from all of them. The reason I'm calling today is I would like some insight on a situation that I have going on right now with my sister. For some context, I have three sisters and we have quite a big age difference.

• 3:04Speaker 03

  But the closest sister in age is the one that I grew up with. And the situation is she's not talking to me and she refuses to look at me at family gatherings. She's blocked me on her phone and I'm not sure what to do. It hasn't resulted in her holding her kids back from seeing me and my husband, but it's causing a lot of grief with my family and just me internally.

• 3:43Speaker 03

  Previously, in past situations, I've always gone to her and asked her what's wrong and I'm trying to, I guess, stand up for myself and not go to her and always going to her.

• 4:01Speaker 03

  I did learn that she is upset with me that she was not the maid of honor in my wedding, but since I have three sisters, I didn't want to choose between them. So any insight would be amazing and I would just really appreciate it. Thank you so much.

• 4:21Joshua Fields Millburn?

  TK, let's start by thinking about Hannah as maybe one of your clutter counseling clients. If she were to come to you and she was like, hey, my sister is so upset with me that she refuses to communicate. She refuses to talk to me. She doesn't look at me when we're in the same room. She's blocked me on her phone or maybe on social media. Where would you start?

• 4:45Speaker 04

  I would start by making my best effort to respect all of that. Not necessarily in a spirit of accepting it as final, but in a spirit of recognizing that we will never have a chance to reconcile with anyone if we cannot respect the distance that they need, even when we think they are being immature about it, even when we are convinced that we would handle things in a different way. For me, I'm a talker. When I have a problem, I want to talk it out right away, and I want to get to the bottom of it in that conversation.

• 5:18Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Let's fix this right now.

• 5:19Speaker 04

  Let's fix it right now, even if it's five hours. I don't like to let it linger. I don't like to do any mind reading or any of that kind of stuff. But a case could be made that 75% or more of all the people that I will ever love are not like that. And it is a great sacrifice for me when a person that I'm talking with needs time to process things. I'm ready, like as soon as you say something, I'm, I've got some questions about it. I've got some feelings about it. I'm ready. But most of the people need some time, and that's really, really hard to do. But one of the most loving things you can do is to respect that, especially if you are not like that, to honor it and to say, I understand where you're coming from, even if my needs are different,

• 6:03Speaker 04

  and, and, and doing that with your behavior. The second thing I would do is I would,

• 6:10Speaker 04

  I would, I would appreciate the good side of this. The bad side is she's blocked you. She pretends not to see you or doesn't even look in your direction. But my oh my, this could be worse. How gracious she is for not allowing the children to be caught in the crossfires of this, for still allowing the children to experience you and to come over your place and to spend time with you. It's, it's quite common for people to contaminate the way their children think about you, to involve everyone else in their beef, so to speak. So I would give her some credit for that. The other thing I would say is it sounds like in the beginning, like you have no options here and she's completely cut you off. But then you seem like you cracked the door open a little bit when you said,

• 6:55Speaker 04

  you are trying to stand up for yourself. Usually when this sort of thing happens, you're able to go to her and ask her what's wrong. And it sounds like that is an option for you here, but you're trying to stand up for yourself. And I would maybe make an effort to be a little bit more wiggly around what it means to stand up for yourself. There are ways to stand up for yourself without requiring the other person to be the one who initiates an important discussion. Sometimes, love involves recognizing when you have strengths that other people don't have and graciously allowing the two of you to grow as a result of your strengths in the same way that this might be necessary

• 7:40Speaker 04

  in different types of situations. And if your sister here is the quote unquote weaker party in the sense that she's just not likely to bring up conflict, there's a conversation that probably should happen around that issue. But no conversation around that issue can really happen unless you exercise your strength and choose to be the one to initiate a discussion. And I would say there's room here to initiate a discussion, if she's open to it, to find out what's wrong. And if you don't believe you're wrong, you can still express your truth. You don't have to be a doormat to her and base your morality around whatever fleeting emotion she has just to be the one who initiates the conversation. So you can initiate the conversation

• 8:24Speaker 04

  and then stand up for yourself by being not only charitable and compassionate and you're hearing her, but being truthful and honest in the articulating of your views to her. But if you can get a conversation going, it's possible to get a conversation going around your concerns. Hey, I'm glad we got to the bottom of this. I'm glad we worked out a reconciliation. Here's something that worries me, though. I feel as if we would have never gotten to this place if I would have initiated a conversation. It seems to be the case that whenever you're upset at me, you are willing to go indefinitely without saying a word to me, and I'm the one that has to talk. That's not something that I like. I like our relationship, but I would like a way of resolving conflicts

• 9:09Speaker 04

  that's based a little bit more on some mutual accountability and mutual trust. When you get upset at me, I don't want to have to be perfect at guessing that you are upset, because I'm not as good at that as you think. I would like a way of knowing that you're mad at me and you have an issue with me that involves some communication on your part. Would you be willing to work together with me to find a better way for us to get to the bottom of our problems? But you can't get there if you don't exercise the advantage and the strength that you have right now of being the one to initiate the discussion.

• 9:42Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And also, you can't get there if you're pointing and saying, "Here's where you're wrong," or "Here's where you wronged me." Or, "You know what? I get this. The situation seems really frustrating." And if I was in Hannah's shoes, I would definitely be frustrated. It was Ram Dass who said, "Every relationship is a process of falling down." And if I were to pin that at all, I might say that it's, "Every relationship is about learning how to fall so you don't hurt yourself." Right? Because what's happening here is there's a stumbling that's going on in this relationship, or the lack of a relationship right now. Part of that has to do with an expectation that you might have, that my sister should treat me this way, she should be there for me, or she shouldn't be upset. Also, she shouldn't frustrate me.

• 10:27Joshua Fields Millburn?

  But of course, your sister can't frustrate you. If you're frustrated here, that's your problem. Now, maybe she did something, and it caused that frustration, but you decided to hold on to that frustration. And that's always really difficult to admit. But you continue to hold on to that frustration the longer that you need to be right. And in order for you to be right in this situation, your sister has to be wrong, because clearly, your sister wronged you. And you know what? I look at this, and it's easy for me to say, "I can't believe your sister is mad at you because you wouldn't make her the maid of honor," right? Okay, so maybe you're right here. But you don't want to be right. You don't care about being right.

• 11:11Joshua Fields Millburn?

  What you care about is having a connection with your sister. And in this scenario, you may have to go to her and say, I'm gonna sit down. You say this to yourself, I'm gonna set down the need to be right. I'm gonna set down my self-righteousness. That's what's blocking me from letting go right now. In fact, that's what's making me so frustrated. I'm gonna set that down, just for a moment. You can pick it back up later if you want to, right? But I'm gonna set down that need to be right. And as I set that down, I'm gonna say, hey, you know what? I know you were offended. I didn't make you the maid of honor. And I'm sorry. Not, I'm sorry if you were offended. Nothing cowardly like that. Look, you were offended, and I am sorry.

• 11:54Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Man, how powerful is that? Because what do you want? Do you want to be right? Or do you want this connection with your sister? If you're willing to set down the righteousness, you may very well, you may pick up the connection with your sister.

• 12:09Speaker 04

  I'd like to do some conversational role play with you. And we're going to assume that it actually is about the maid of honor. But we should flag that and say, we don't know until that conversation is had. It could be something else. All right, so I'm going to be the offended party. And I'm offended at you, and I'll just start right there. Yeah, I'm glad you initiated this conversation. I'm glad you came to me. Yeah, I am upset.

• 12:32Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, I'm sorry.

• 12:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think what you did was wrong. I think I'm your sister. Everything we've been through, I should have been the maid of honor. There's no question about that.

• 12:44Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I understand. Tell me more about that.

• 12:47Speaker 04

  I mean, there's really nothing else to say. I should have been in that position.

• 12:52Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Do you understand why it was a difficult decision for me?

• 12:58Speaker 04

  I don't know if I care, but... Why was it a difficult decision for you?

• 13:03Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Well, because I have several sisters, and I didn't want to feel like I was playing favorites. And I would hope the same thing with you, that you wouldn't feel... I wouldn't compel you to play favorites with me. And I know that's not what you were trying to do, but that was the dilemma I was in. And I know that offended you, and there was probably a better way I could have approached it. So maybe you could talk to me about a better way to approach that going forward.

• 13:33Speaker 04

  Okay, I'm trying to think of a difficult response. I have nothing left, other than to just like, give you a, "Okay, fine." Or, "Let me think about that."

• 13:44Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Well, the alternate role play to this is like, "Well, you see, here's the problem. You were wrong and I was right." No, no, no, I was right and you were wrong. And then, it escalates. And there's, you may end up right at the end of it, but you're going to end up without a sister. Now, there will be some instances where that makes more sense. Not every death of a relationship is a catastrophe. There's a fear here, right? We're gonna talk a bit today about fear, and how our fears are intertwined with our, maybe even entangled, with our frustrations, right? And so, we're gonna talk a bit about that, but I think ultimately, behind all of those fears is some sort of fear of death.

• 14:27Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And we treat death as though it's the ultimate bad thing. Now, of course, I'm talking about literal death there, but there's also the death of a relationship. And sometimes, certain relationships die. It may not be the relationship itself. It may not be the other person in the relationship. But what dies here is my need to be right. Or what dies here is the way that things were. I'm going to have to let that former relationship die, so that we can move forward in a more healthy, connected way.

• 15:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, my final point here would be, you don't have to be the one to initiate a conversation with your sister. I'm not laying down a law here that says, "You must do this, and if you don't, you're wrong." If you decide, "I'm done with that. I've tried that enough times, and I promised myself I'm never gonna do that again." I honor and respect that, I totally get that. However, it just doesn't sound to me like that's what you want. It doesn't sound to me like this is the kind of relationship that you can easily or readily cut off and live in peace. It sounds to me like this is the kind of relationship where if you do cut it off, or accept that it has ended, you're going to want to have that feeling of peace that comes from annoying. You truly gave it your best shot and tried all that you could.

• 15:46Speaker 04

  And so, I do recommend, in this case, to... Separate the idea of standing up yourself, standing up for yourself, from the idea of initiating the conversation. Initiate a conversation, listen charitably and compassionately, and then try to get to a reconciliation. And if you're able to do that, use it as an opportunity to talk about the way problems get solved in the future, so that you don't have to do this anymore. And then you can stand your ground on whatever agreements you come to.

• 16:14Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And there will be times where you have to let go of a relationship at some point, because, well, maybe you don't have access to the person anymore. And it may not be for your sister here, Hannah, but there will always be people from whom you walk away. And you need to walk away. You need to love them from a distance. I think of the wise words from the philosopher Tupac Shakur. He said, "Just because you lost me as a friend doesn't mean you gained me as an enemy. I'm bigger than that. I still want to see you eat, just not at my table." And isn't that the spirit of love? I might need to love you from a distance, but it doesn't mean that I've gained an enemy in you, even if we're apart, even if we're no longer connected.

• 16:59Joshua Fields Millburn?

  It means I can want the best from you, even if it is from a distance. TK, do you think that Hannah would find some value in your Emotional Clutter ebook? Because there's a lot of emotional clutter behind this. I think I would encourage her to download it over at theminimists.com on the free resources page up there. Just click Resources at the top. You can download Emotional Clutter for free, or you can check out the audiobook version as well.

• 17:24Speaker 04

  I say, let's give Hannah a free clutter counseling session as well. We'll reach out to you. Let's sit down and unpack this for about an hour, and make sure you're feeling really good about this conversation if you're going to go into it.

• 17:37Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I think that's super helpful. If you want to get a clutter counseling session with TK, you can head on over to theminimists.com, and just click Counseling at the top. His calendar is open. You can book an appointment today. Before we get back to our callers from Alabama, what time is it?

• 17:52Speaker 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.

• 17:58Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, indeed. Now, during the lightning round... We attempt to answer your question with a short, shareable, minimal maxim. You can find this episode's maxims in the show notes over at theminimalists.com/podcast and every minimal maxim ever over 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 advertisements because we don't want to frustrate you, right? What's the question of the week this week?

• 18:29Speaker 01

  What frustrating expectations do your family, friends, or coworkers have of you?

• 18:34Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Oh, what frustrating expectations. All right, before we get to our pithy answers, TK, I want to hear from some of our simpletons. Malabama, what did our listeners have to say?

• 18:43Speaker 01

  John said, "There's an expectation that I am the only one who can hold everything together. The responsibility is overwhelming, and I never get a chance to do anything to take care of myself. If I fail, then someone else has a repercussion: late to school, missed assignment, bill not paid, appointment missed, et cetera."

• 19:01Joshua Fields Millburn?

  TK, is it possible that John accidentally set this expectation with others? "I'm the dependable one."

• 19:09Speaker 04

  That may very well be possible, or it may very well be the case that John is the one who cares about these things and no one else in this situation really cares about it, such that if the consequences were experienced, they'd be all right. I don't know for sure that's the case, but that could be the case here. I think this would be a great opportunity to take some inventory and see if we can get the people that we're doing all these things for to adopt some skin in the game, to articulate how important these things are to them, and then ask them, what are they willing to do in order to receive my help? Because my help will be, going forward, a form of support, not a form of carrying you on my back entirely for something that you say you care about.

• 19:51Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I've noticed quite often the expectations other people have of me. It's because I set them up unbeknownst to myself.

• 19:58Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 19:58Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I'm going to be the dependable one. I'm going to be the one you can count on. You can come to me for this, this, this, and this. And that's fine until those demands are so taxing that it's actually draining for me. It causes some sort of, of, of suffering. Or maybe it just causes a type of clutter. It gets in the way of my well-being, or it gets in the way of my calendar. It gets in the way of how I want to spend my time. I'm thinking about, um, just this past weekend. It feels like when we record these episodes, I always have two or three or four life events that, that correspond perfectly with the topic that we're getting ready to talk about. So I had several things that frustrated me recently, uh, this past week.

• 20:40Joshua Fields Millburn?

  In fact, we were at, I was at Sunday Symposium this weekend and I was on stage. And one of the first things I said is, you know how I know I'm not enlightened? My in-laws are staying with us this week.

• 20:53Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Now it's my sister-in-law, my brother-in-law, and their three kids. We have a relatively small house. It's not a tiny home, but it's a three-bedroom home and they're staying with us. And there's four kids and four adults now. And wow, talk about frustrating, but of course the little kids didn't frustrate me. The other adults didn't frustrate me. I was frustrating myself. And by the way, these are all things I said yes to as well. And then, uh, this morning I was going to blow dry my hair as I do. It looks a little crazy right now. I came in here, Malibu was like, oh my gosh, don't ever shave your head.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  It's, it's like watching like a bird take a bath. It looks like a totally different animal and you're like, wow.

• 21:35Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I was so frustrated because I didn't have my hair dryer this morning. Cause Savvy D had my hair dryer, even though he has no hair, look at that. What's going on?

• 21:42Speaker 04

  What is happening?

• 21:44Speaker 01

  Josh lost three inches of height without his hair blow dried, y'all.

• 21:46Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I know. I'm, uh, I went down to six-two from six-five with hair. And I, you know, it's what, and of course Savvy D didn't frustrate me or Mallory didn't frustrate me. TK couldn't make it to Sunday Symposium this weekend. He called me, was it 5:00 AM or 6:00 AM on Sunday morning? I'm laying on the floor, super quiet, because I have a house full of all these kids and all these other people and, and I'm the first one up and I'm doing some stretches on the living room floor. I'm laying there. I've got my earpiece in, all of a sudden I hear phone call from TK Coleman. And so I answer the phone like, "Hello?" Because I don't want to wake anyone up. And I thought TK had been shot, because all I heard on the other end was, "Oh, oh, oh." I'm like, "Great, I'm

• 22:30Joshua Fields Millburn?

  your last phone call?" I love you TK, but this is really frustrating that I'm your last phone call.

• 22:37Speaker 04

  What, what if I just wanted to say, "I love you"?

• 22:41Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I'd say, "I love you too." And I'd say, "Death is the ultimate letting go." Actually, I'd just say it to myself. I don't think I'd say it to you on the phone. But he, he couldn't make it to Sunday Symposium. He had a night where he was sick and totally understand that. I've, I've definitely had those nights. And so I show up to Sunday Symposium by myself and it turned out to be great. There were a million errors at the venue because they just put everything back together. And so that was frustrating me as well, because our sound check was going over and there were problems with the lighting and Mallory's trying to super glue everything together to make it work. And, and she and Savvy D did, and they worked with Jack and the venue there and, and West Hollywood and

• 23:23Joshua Fields Millburn?

  it all came together. And my frustrations didn't help me one bit. In fact, that morning, right before the event, I stopped by Backyard Bowls right across the street and I got a, I got a island bowl, acai bowl over there. And I said, "Ah, but no granola, please." And they're like, "Okay, gotcha. No granola." I type it in the computer, "No granola." And I go to pick it up at the other end. They call my name and, "Joshua?" Great. I pick it out, I start eating it. And of course, there's granola in the bowl. And you know how I know I'm not enlightened? Because I'm frustrated. They put organic food in my food.

• 24:05Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And it's like, it frustrated me at first. But that frustration didn't really do anything for me. It was punishing myself twice because I could say, okay, I'll have them remake the bowl and spend some time doing that. But the frustration never helps with my problem. Maybe it points toward my, my fears or insecurities and I'm sure we'll talk a bit about that. But those expectations other people have of John or of anyone else listening to this, yeah, sometimes they have unrealistic expectations. That's on them. But it's on you to decide whether or not you're frustrated about those. And maybe you didn't even make that decision that it's frustrating. But now you're making the decision to hold on to that frustration.

• 24:49Joshua Fields Millburn?

  How long do I want to be frustrated about their expectations? There's an essay on our website, one of my favorites that I've ever written, came out last year called Store Brand Insecurity. We'll put a link to this in the show notes. But that line from that essay that really stands out to me is, you care what other people think. You yearn for their acceptance because there's an underlying dissatisfaction in your own life. And that's a hard one to admit. But I think it's true for the vast majority of people. We want to be accepted by other people because we want that connection. But there's some sort of dissatisfaction in my life that amplifies my need for you to

• 25:33Joshua Fields Millburn?

  accept me and therefore for you to complete me. What else you got, Bama?

• 25:37Speaker 01

  Kyle said, "The most frustrating things to me are the seemingly contrasting expectations I receive. Put your foot down, but not with me. Make a decision already, but go with the flow. Take some more time for yourself. Why don't we ever see you anymore?"

• 25:52Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Oh, yeah, this is frustrating. TK, how many of our expectations are contradictory?

• 25:59Speaker 04

  Well, it sounds to me like this is a case where other people are encouraging him to do something good, but as long as it doesn't require them to sacrifice their access to him.

• 26:11Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Oh.

• 26:11Speaker 04

  I watched my father as a pastor go through this, where he was a man that a lot of people wanted to talk to about their challenges, and I totally understand. And there would be a long line of people that would say, "Hey, I just need two minutes. I just need five minutes." And he was very generous with his time. It was never five minutes, of course. It was always 15 or 20 or something along those lines. But I remember all of those people would also passionately tell him, "Make sure you get some rest. Make sure, you know, you put boundaries around your time. Don't give yourself over to people too much." But they never meant it towards them. And it's an understandable oversight that just happens. I think when people say these sorts of things to you, it's an opportunity to sort of hold up a gentle mirror,

• 26:55Speaker 04

  helping them to see how their own cooperation can help you in the living out of whatever advice it is they're giving you. So if someone that's demanding a lot of your time says, "Hey, you need to take more time to yourself," you can say to them, "One of the reasons why that's difficult is that everyone advises me to do that, but no one wants to be the one who sacrifices having time with me. Would you be willing to be one of the ones who makes that sacrifice so I can get that rest?"

• 27:26Joshua Fields Millburn?

  You know, when often I complain about something, or I don't even complain about it out loud, I catch myself. I'm getting ready to complain, or I have a complaint that I want to formally put into the complaint box, right? I want to put it out into the world. I also realize that my complaints often point toward my clinging. I'm clinging to the way I wish this was, and it's not that way, so I'm gonna keep clinging to that. But if I ceased clinging, if I just let go of the way I wish things were, I wish these people didn't have these expectations of me. Yeah, sometimes we can do a better job of setting expectations, but sometimes people are just going to have unrealistic expectations, and they don't know it.

• 28:09Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And you may not have time to tell every single person, your dad certainly didn't have time to tell every person individually that their expectation is slightly unreasonable. It's 85% reasonable, but 15% unreasonable, and your expectation is 60% unreasonable, but 40% reasonable. He didn't have the time to parse that out because he would have spent all his time just readjusting everyone's expectations, which are already adjusting on their own anyway. And so he, in a way, had to let go of their expectations, even if they were continuing to hold on to those expectations for him. Let's do one more, Bama.

• 28:43Speaker 01

  This one comes from Kylie. My mother and sisters expect me to give unconditionally, continuously. If I stop, for whatever reason, I lose all value. Once I'm useful again, I'm back in their club. That isn't to say I'm appreciated. I'm just allowed to be part of the circle once more. If I complain, I'm being ridiculous or oversensitive.

• 29:04Joshua Fields Millburn?

  EK, stop being ridiculous.

• 29:06Speaker 01

  Stop ridiculous.

• 29:07Joshua Fields Millburn?

  You're so sensitive. Isn't that the worst? You have no way to respond to, you're just being sensitive. No, I'm not. It's like, see?

• 29:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:17Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Told you. Talk to me about this, because we often want to be members of a club that we don't even enjoy being in.

• 29:25Speaker 04

  Hmm. Well, sometimes, especially in cases like this, where that club is family, we do feel deeply wedded to the idea that if we can just get it right, we really would enjoy it. Or that, or that we're not going to have a better chance at enjoyment, or a better chance of a good club to be in than this one. And that's a really tricky issue when it comes to family. I find one of the tragic but harsh realities about manipulation is that people manipulate because it works. It works. Guilt tripping actually works. We tend to respond to it really effectively. It doesn't work in producing long-term change, but it can work in getting you to do something

• 30:06Speaker 04

  that you don't want to do right now, even if you resent me for it later. And for people that are just focused on what they want, they'll let you handle that long-term resentment. And I find that sometimes, especially when dealing with people who Think they know us really well. It takes a longer amount of time to reinforce in their mind a new you. And so if you've been a yes person all your life and people know they can manipulate you. People know they can just sort of exclude you from the club and that you'll eventually change your behavior. The first time you say no, the first 20 times you say no, they're not going to take you seriously. You've got a whole track record of saying, hey, I can be manipulated. I can be swayed. Just stop talking to me for two months and then I'll come back, you know, apologizing.

• 30:51Speaker 04

  And sometimes you have to be willing to think about what you're willing to pay for self-respect. And sometimes there's something to be said about having an attitude that says, I love all my people. But if you need to stop talking to me for one month, two months, three months, four months, five years, because you're mad at me being honest about what I truly feel. I'm mentally, psychologically prepared to endure that for the sake of making sure that whatever we have, it's based on truth and authenticity and not on the lies I think I need to tell in order to keep us together. And you'd be amazed at how many people change the way they respect you and show up for you when you actually command the respect.

• 31:36Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I think there's an identity component here as well. Our identities, you know, we can call it the ego, which is just the false self, right? But our identities, we were talking about this at Sunday Symposium this week. We're talking about all the false identities that we pick up and they're really useful as labels. If I'm set, tell you I'm a minimalist, that tells you something about me. But as soon as I identify as a minimalist, well, that's a type of clinging, right? And of course, that clinging leads to suffering. So our identities form the root of our suffering. And I think that it can be true in a family especially. My identity is part of, I'm part of this family. I'm a family member. I'm a millburn, right? But of course you have your biological family and then you have your logical family.

• 32:19Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And while TK isn't my biological family, Malabama isn't my biological family. Savvy D or post-production Peter or Ryan Nicodemus aren't my biological. Logical family. I consider them part of my logical family. These are people that I choose to spend time with and because time is a limited resource, that also means I have less time for a biological family. There are people in my biological family, aunts and uncles and cousins, who I haven't renounced, I haven't shunned, but I don't actively reach out to those people. And it's not because I hate them, or I dislike them, or they're enemies of mine. They're they're not. It's just I have a logical family, a chosen family, the people that I'm choosing to

• 33:00Joshua Fields Millburn?

  give my most precious resources to, my energy, my time, my attention, my understanding, my love, my compassion, right? And these are, these are things that I that can give to you, right? Even if you don't know that I'm giving them to you. But also, the opposite is true. And I think this is what Kylie's saying here is, these are things people can take from you. And you don't realize, and they don't realize, they're taking these precious resources from you. So whom do you want to spend your resources on Kylie? And if you're identifying with a way of life that is clinging, that is leading you to suffering, you can set down that identity so that you can move

• 33:44Joshua Fields Millburn?

  forward. How about you listeners? What frustrating expectations do your family and friends, or even your coworkers have of you? 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 on Patreon. We'd love to see you there on the private podcast every week, but you can join the community chats for free. Okay, give me something pithy TK. What frustrating expectations do your family, friends, or coworkers have of you? Josh wants me to be here every day at 9:15.

• 34:17Speaker 04

  Man, we talking about being on time.

• 34:21Speaker 04

  One man's potential is another man's prison. There's someone out there who thinks that the best way for them to be the highest version of themselves is to be really wealthy. And so when they look at your life, they see it through that lens. There's someone out there who thinks the best way for them to be the highest version of themselves is to have a certain kind of spouse, or a certain kind of house, to achieve a certain level of intellectual prowess and so on. We look at other people through the lens of our own values, and from that perspective, we say, fulfill your potential, which is why I often say that for every great achiever, for every happy person, there's someone back home who's wondering when their dear old buddy went off the deep end. What's Josh doing, man?

• 35:05Speaker 04

  Is he still doing that like little minimalism thing? Is he still doing that little podcast thing? What's Bama doing, man? I know, I remember Bama from high school. She's still doing a little actor thing? Is she still doing a little podcast thing? What's Savvy D doing, man? Is he still doing the little? Everything that you do is an under fulfillment of your potential to someone else. And so, potential can be a trap, and I think for me, I wouldn't use the word frustrating, but I would say disappointing. It's when I see people that I love talk about other people that I love as if they shouldn't be as happy and fulfilled as they are, because they're not fulfilling their potential as someone else defines it.

• 35:43Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Wow, wow. You know what frustrates me is, I thought you were doing a whole Dr. Seuss routine there, where you're like, having a better house and a better spouse. You were going so, I'm like, oh, this is-

• 35:54Speaker 04

  Having a better suit or a better blouse.

• 35:55Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Dang, that was good. I'm frustrated you didn't finish all of the rhymes. But that's, you didn't frustrate me, I frustrated myself, TK. Which brings me to my pithy answer. Originally, I was going to say, every expectation adds another bar to your prison cell. That's something that we shared on Instagram recently. We've been doing these little, we call them stealth reels. And it's like a, we do a quick video, and then we put like a maxim over top of it. We're sharing minimal maxims on the minimalist Instagram account, usually on Thursdays. And just on a story, and then it goes- And so I love the little ephemeral nature of that. But one of the things we shared, I was, it looked like I was in a prison. Savvy D and Jordan and I were out and like, there's this, this construction site down here.

• 36:40Joshua Fields Millburn?

  There's this huge fence and we were able to get through it on the other side. And I'm holding on to the fence and it's, and it just says that, that every expectation adds another bar to your prison cell. Now, one might argue that we're all in some sort of prison, but pick the prison you want to be in and what expectations are you going to have? And what expectations are you going to let go of? Because the more expectations you have, the smaller that prison cell becomes. But that's not my pithy answer. Today, I just wrote this down on the fly. And so my answer to the question of the week is this. Your frustrations point toward your fears. It was the Buddha who said, fear is the result of ignorance.

• 37:22Joshua Fields Millburn?

  So we are ignorant every time we have some sort of fear, some sort of worry. And then we try to, we try to worry our way to success. If I just worry enough, then maybe the outcome will change. And then you end up in the same exact place, whether or not you were worrying, whether or not you were clinging to that worry. And I would say the same thing is true with our expectations and our frustrations. Anytime I'm frustrated about something, I'm also fearful of something. I'm frustrated by my, my hair dryer. I didn't have it in here this morning. What am I actually frustrated by? I'm afraid that people won't like the way my hair looks. Okay, maybe they won't. So what? What's that going to do to me? Is it going to hurt me physically? Is it going to hurt my ego?

• 38:05Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Oh, it's not going to hurt me physically, but maybe there's something, I need to project this image. I'm the type of person who always has big, nice hair. And then you, as soon as you say it out loud, you realize how absurd these fears are. In fact, that's a practice I do regularly. Anytime that I fear something or I'm frustrated by something, I'm clinging to something, I write it down and I get it out of my mind where it takes up so much space. We just did an episode about the small things. They feel like a big deal. The small things that turn into a big problem. But the opposite is true. Those big problems in our head become so small when we get them down on the page or when we say them out loud. That is the end of page one, but we still have an entire switchboard of callers to talk to.

• 38:50Joshua Fields Millburn?

  But first, real quick, for right here, right now, here's one thing that's going on in the life of the minimalist. You know, Nicodemus is going to be back in studio with us really soon.

• 39:00Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 39:01Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, indeed. I hope you all are excited. You know, he'll be in town for Sunday Symposium this month. We'll be in Santa Barbara, the final Sunday of the month. I think there are still some tickets available on our events page over at theminimalists.com. Also, we're doing a three-day Simple Haven Retreat. It's called Simple Haven. It's three days with the minimalist, me, and TK. And Nicodemus will be there. I don't know if there are any tickets left by the time this comes out, but there might be two or three seats available. We're sitting down with 30 people in Ojai for three days, two days in Ojai and then one day in Santa Barbara for the Sunday Symposium. We have people coming from all over the place, the Czech Republic, from Texas, well, two of my favorite countries.

• 39:42Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And we have people coming from all over the place. Hope to see you there at either one of those. Nicodemus will be there with us, and he'll be in studio as well. So if you have a specific question for Ryan Nicodemus, he's coming back here to California to spend some time with us, send us a voice memo to [email protected]. We'll have Nicodemus answer your question live on the podcast. You guys excited to see Nicodemus live and in person?

• 40:09Speaker 04

  Heck, yeah, baby!

• 40:10Speaker 01

  Nicodemus live! Yeah, I miss that man so much. His presence brings so much warmth to any space that he fills. It is just, he's just a ball of minimalist joy.

• 40:20Speaker 04

  Yeah. Bama, don't you have a great Nicodemus impersonation?

• 40:22Speaker 01

  Uh, no. No, but I need to add that to my...

• 40:26Speaker 04

  It's me, Ryan Nicodemus!

• 40:27Speaker 01

  Oh, it's me, I'm Ryan Nicodemus. Every mic check we do off mic, "I'm Ryan Nicodemus", and he always puts a finger mustache over his mouth.

• 40:35Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Over his mustache?

• 40:36Speaker 01

  Over his mustache. I'm like, "It's already there, my guy."

• 40:40Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Looking forward to having Nico Divas back in the studio. Also, we're going to have a divorce attorney in the studio. We're doing a whole divorce episode. We were going to do this last year, but it got rescheduled. So if you have a questions about marriage, about divorce, about breakups, about ending things amicably, about when things blow up, what to do, about prenuptial agreements, about postnuptial agreements, about struggles during a marriage, he's a really brilliant divorce attorney. Can't wait to have him in the studio. You can send in your divorce questions, your breakup questions, your marriage questions, [email protected]. Send us a voice memo so we can air your question on the show. Also, a quick programming note, I'm going on vacation next week, so we don't have a podcast next week.

• 41:25Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 41:26Joshua Fields Millburn?

  We will see you in two weeks after this. We still have a whole lot more to talk about on page two and page three, but Mel, Alabama, what else you got for us?

• 41:35Speaker 01

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

• 41:38Speaker 05

  Hi, minimalists. This is Madison here in Oceanside, California. I have some insight for the mom who called in who is dealing with the kids' clothes and kids' clutter. I have three kids and a bonus kiddo here at the house, ranging from age four to 13, and a kiddo with a disability. So, we have a lot of accessories. One of my biggest pieces of advice on the kids' clothing is to be very intentional and picky about what you keep for the next kid below it. So, I usually take a smaller box. I think like they have like banker boxes, nothing too big, and make sure it's clear. And I go through the kids'

• 42:18Speaker 05

  clothes and imagine, would I buy this again for this next kid? If it has stains or rips, of course, it is getting passed on or repurposed. And then I am very picky, almost like I'm going through boutique, of would I purchase this again? It helps you kind of come from the lens of like being very purposeful about kids' clothing, and I do the same thing for kids' toys. Where I do not keep kids' clothes anymore is after they hit junior high. Once they hit junior high, I've noticed, fourth, fifth grade, they start to want to choose their own clothes, and often the siblings before them's personality and clothing is different than the next kiddo in line. At that age, I just pass the clothes on, lessen release.

• 43:03Speaker 05

  Also, I try to not have a scarcity mindset about clothing and toys when it comes to children. This is a little bit different with our kiddo with a disability, because those things are hard to replace. But typical kids, it is very easy to source clothing and toys if you happen to pass it on. I try not to keep too many clothes, maybe like one age to two ages up, in their closet. So it's a very easy taking the bin down and substituting the clothes and then blessing and releasing the clothes we're not going to use anymore. I hope that's really helpful. Hang in there, mamas. It's a tough job you're doing.

• 43:41Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Oh, Madison, thank you so much for that helpful, that insightful comment that you had there. I hope to see you at our next Sunday Symposium in Orange County, since you're in Southern California and you're south of us here. So we'll see you in Orange County next month. Free tickets over on the website, theminimalists.com. Just click on Events at the top. Get those tickets while they are still available. For anyone else has a listener tip or insight about this episode, send a voice memo to [email protected] so we can feature your voice on the show. Up next, Page 2 and Page 3. But first, let's take a quick pandiculation break. We'll be right back.

• 44:19Joshua Fields Millburn?

  All right, that's the first 33% of episode 487. We'll see you on Patreon for the full maximal edition, which includes answers to a bunch more questions. Questions like, what are seven habits that are making your house feel more cluttered? How can I help someone realize that their self-indulgence is harmful? And how can I encourage my workplace to let go of hustle culture? Plus, a million more questions and Simple Living segments over on The Minimalist's 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, Malabama, post-production Peter, Spire Jeff, Inspire Dave, Savvy D. on

• 45:02Joshua Fields Millburn?

  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.

• 45:11Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And use things. Because the opposite is so freaking frustrating. Thanks for listening, y'all.

• 45:18Speaker 01

  We'll see you next time.

• 45:20Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Peace in the midst of the frustration.

• 45:23Speaker 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.