507 | Closer to Contentment

The Minimalists talk about letting go of things that are a reminder of a painful past, everyday essentials, joybaiting instead of ragebating, several things professional organizers say we should let go of this fall, and more. Have a question for the show? Call 406-219-7839 or email a voice memo to [email protected]. Discussed in this episode: How do I let go of old digital content—such as photos, contacts, and social media friends—that remind me of a painful past? (4:10) What if I regret getting rid of something? (15:09) What's something from your past that's getting in the way of your present? (24:57) Right Here, Right Now: Simplify Everything and Friday afternoon Zoom calls with The Minimalists. (45:23) Listener Tip: How to manage laundry for six people. (47:55) 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'd be fine without it.

• 0:39Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, hello, simpletons. Welcome to the Minimalist Podcast, where we discuss what it means to live a meaningful life with less. My name is Joshua Fields Milburn, and joining me here at Earthing Studios in beautiful West Hollywood, California, is my good friend TK Coleman.

• 0:58Speaker 02

  My people, what is happening?

• 1:01Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Welcome back. You were, uh, where were you, Mount Carmel recently?

• 1:05Speaker 02

  Hey, man, I wish I was at the literal Mount Carmel, but I was at a Carmelite Retreat. I was at a monastery, Carmelite monastery on a silent retreat.

• 1:12Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Is there like a lot of meditation? What's going on there when you're doing that?

• 1:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, you basically only got like a few things you can do. You can go into the chapel and pray, you can go out to the garden, you can take a walk out in nature, or you can go into kind of like a meditation room and meditate and read, but that's it. No one's allowed to talk to you, you're not allowed to talk to them. And so what's beautiful is not just what you can discover about yourself with the silence, but also you understand that communion and conversation are not necessarily the same thing, because there are moments where you need people and you gotta connect with them, but you can't use your words.

• 1:42Joshua Fields Millburn?

  That reminds me, growing up with my brother Jerome, we would spend like almost every moment of every day together, and we almost never talked. We were communing all the time. It didn't require, it's almost like we had transcended some level of needing that surface level conversation. I think Nicodemus and I got to that point when we were on tour for very long stretches of time. We'd be on the road in his Toyota Camry or Corolla for 10 months at a time. Just driving and it got to a point where it was like, I've said everything that needs to be said, but I will actually enjoy being with you more if I don't just try to to fill the air with bland natterings.

• 2:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's crazy how words can actually get in the way of connection sometimes, not because we're using bad words or the wrong words, but just because the sound is standing between us.

• 2:31Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I would say words can get in the way of contentment as well. And we're gonna be talking about that a bit today, about contentment, about misery, about getting closer to contentment as well. I know we have some questions around that. I didn't know, where was your retreat at? Was it here in Cali?

• 2:43Speaker 02

  It was here in Cali, in the Redlands, the El Carmelo Retreat Center.

• 2:47Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Okay.

• 2:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:48Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I thought maybe you're over at the Vatican, because Pusha T and Malice were performing there. Did you see that?

• 2:53Speaker 02

  I saw that reel. I saw they were breaking down the gospel music, too.

• 2:57Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Oh, I was like, this is this is right up TK's alley.

• 3:00Speaker 02

  Hey, man, it's that Chicago Pope.

• 3:04Joshua Fields Millburn?

  We got a lot to talk about today. Coming up on this episode, we're talking about letting go of things that are a reminder of a painful past. We're also gonna talk about everyday essentials, you know, what do I keep in my pockets? What do I keep in my bag? Gonna talk about that on page two. Joy baiting instead of rage baiting. I love that concept. And several things that professional organizers say we should let go of this fall. Also on page two, TK, we have a few follow up questions from last week's capitalism episode, which I really enjoyed with you and Ray Flendings, but there were some questions we couldn't get to, and I wanted your perspective on those. Let's start with our callers. If you have a question or comment for our show, we'd love to hear from you. Our phone number, four zero six two one nine seven eight three nine.

• 3:48Joshua Fields Millburn?

  You can be a part of the show, or you can just send a voice recording right from your phone to podcast at theminimalists.com. Let us know if you're a Patreon subscriber, so we can prioritize your message. By the way, big thanks to our patrons. Your support keeps our podcast 100% advertisement free, because sing along at home, y'all. Advertisement suck. Our first question today is from Richard.

• 4:13Speaker 03

  Hi Joshua, TK and Ryan. My name is Richard from Australia and I'm a Patreon subscriber. I've been listening to you all since 2014. I have been hoarding and then decluttering for the last 30 years. I'm getting closer to achieving contentment with my minimalist goals. A question that's been bothering me for a few years now is, is there a seasonality rule for digital contacts? Voice memos, photos and social media friends? I currently have 1,581 contacts on my iPhone and 101,410 photos.

• 4:56Speaker 03

  I want to delete and curate those people that aren't part of my life anymore and sometimes make me feel like a failure of my past. When can I let go and delete people I haven't contacted or haven't contacted me? What about keeping a record of who they were in past photos or memories? What happens if we delete our past too much? Does it make the future more apprehensive as there's no looking back? What does that make me feel about who I am today if I have nothing to look back on?

• 5:35Speaker 03

  I'm 57 years old now, my past is bigger than my future. But how do I forgive my past and be happy about where I've been and who I used to be? Thanks guys.

• 5:48Joshua Fields Millburn?

  TK, do you hear that trepidation in Richard's voice? There's a lot there. There's, there's two primary questions I want to get to those and there are probably several other things to talk about here as well. But the first thing is this resonates with me because you know, I used to work back in telecom way back in the days. You know, I started in the 1900s. And I started as a regular retail store employee. I eventually became an assistant manager and a store manager and a regional manager, area manager, a director, and worked my way up the corporate ladder. But as I was working in these retail stores... Man, I think the people are most passionate about their phones and their luggage. You go to an airport where an airline has lost their luggage,

• 6:32Joshua Fields Millburn?

  you see people losing it, and I understand. But like, oh no, I've, I've lost something that I really, really need. And when something would happen to someone's phone, like it just deleted all their contacts, or worse, we had these machines back in the day, and not everything was uploaded into the cloud. So we would have these machines where I would take the contacts off of one phone, and I'd put it into this new phone that you're purchasing. But sometimes, there would be an error, and it would just delete all the contacts. And the level of frustration and pain and anger and furiousness, I've had cell phones thrown at me, I've had counters kicked, I've had computers tipped over.

• 7:17Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I have seen people get really upset. So I understand the trepidation in Richard's voice, because he doesn't want to get to that point where I feel like I've lost everything. But he's also asking this question because like, if he has control over it, then it doesn't feel like a loss. Like, if I go to your house and steal all, I steal 80% of the clothes out of your closet, you're gonna panic, and you're gonna feel like you've been robbed, because you have. But if you go into your closet and get rid of 80% of the clothes, all the clothes you're not wearing, and it's the same exact clothes, you feel like you had some agency there. And so, the reason I think Richard is asking these questions is he wants an agency in letting go. And he asked the question about the seasonality rule for digital clutter. I like that, you know, the seasonality rule works really well in your closet.

• 8:01Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Have I worn this in the last 90 days? Am I going to wear it in the next 90 days? And if the answer is no to both of those, I'm going to let it go. I think the same thing doesn't hold true for a contact in my phone. But I'd also say the contacts in my phone are far less problematic, because they don't take up the same physical space. But for Richard, they're taking up space in his mind. And he's kind of neurosaying over those things now. So the first question I'd like to address is, how do I let go of this old digital content? Like photos and contacts, and even social media friends, that remind me of a painful past?

• 8:39Speaker 02

  Wow. The visual I have in my mind right now is you at like a T-Mobile doing like the Matrix Dodge as people are throwing phones at you. And so what I'm feeling energetically right now is we gotta show Richard how to do the Matrix Dodge for all these overwhelming digital contacts. Now, I'm very, very empathetic towards the part where it's like, hey, this is an old buddy of mine and just because we haven't talked in a while, don't mean we might not talk in the future, the just in case of digital contacts. But then there are ones we look at and say, I get this ah, not in my stomach every time I see it. And we still hold on to that because we've got this narrative, to use this language, of deleting the past.

• 9:20Speaker 02

  If I delete the contact, I delete, I sever my connection with the person. Somehow their name and number being in my phone metaphysically binds us together. And if I cut that out, it's like, no, I lost my past. So, and I think this is where your beautiful quote from the documentary just really comes in so powerfully. And that is our memories are not in our things, they're in ourselves and our hearts and our minds and our spirits. And I think this is more true of digital contacts than physical possessions because with a digital contact, that's just a kind of artifact that represents the possibility of a real connection. That digital contact means this person is alive and you can reach out to them if you

• 10:05Speaker 02

  want to. So if you're thinking about getting rid of that, that already indicates that something has been severed. Yes, you have positive memories with them. Once upon a time, you went to school together or you worked together. But the reality of your life is you're, it's not a priority to be connecting with them. And so I think thinking about your life and your friendships and how people have their impact on us in ways that aren't so bound together with having their phone number is so critical here. Everyone you will ever meet in some sense lives inside of you, lives through you because they've impacted your life, they've influenced you in so many ways. And I don't think you have to hang on to a phone number in order to hold on to that.

• 10:49Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, there are a few rules that you just brought up here, like the just in case rule. How does that apply to digital contacts? Yes, I want to hold on to a phone number that I need just in case. Like my plumber. That's more of an emergency item. I hope I never have to call him, but I know I will at some point.

• 11:05Speaker 02

  So it's just for when, right?

• 11:06Joshua Fields Millburn?

  It's a just for when, exactly. And so there are some numbers in there that I'm not going to use within 90 days, but I'm going to hold on to it just for when I do need it. I don't want to call my plumber. I don't want to call the guy who helps patch stuff on my roof. Hopefully, I won't have to call him for 10 years, but in 10 years, I'll still have his number there. Now, if I were to lose that, could I still go out and find it? Yes, but I'm going to create a level of inconvenience that's unnecessary, right? And so I do think about many of these things because there's another context. I have a dead friend in my phone. My friend Stan, I wrote an essay about him. It's the last essay in our book, Essential. And Richard, I'd love to send you a copy of that book because it's called Live Like Stan.

• 11:49Joshua Fields Millburn?

  He died at 36 years old unexpectedly. He and Nicodemus, who used to be like really great friends. We all worked together and like women always thought he like played for the Cincinnati Bengals because he was like this huge dude, right? But he was like so kind and loving. And I wrote an essay about him. Also, I wrote about him in Everything That Remains. And his contact is still on my phone. And so here's what I'm going to do. I've got my phone right down here.

• 12:18Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I'm going to go into my phone right now, and this is for Richard and anyone else listening to this. And I'm going to go in and delete Stan's contact because why would I need it? Well, am I going to call this number? If it is a working number, it's been reassigned to someone, obviously, right?

• 12:35Speaker 02

  Wait, but why'd you keep it? If you're going to delete it right now, hold on.

• 12:39Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 12:39Speaker 02

  Why'd you keep it?

• 12:40Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Well, I didn't think about it until this question came up. I never go through my contacts. And so to me, going through my contacts is almost like going through Wikipedia. It's like my own private Wikipedia. I don't search through Wikipedia and say, oh, I need to edit things. There are people who do that with Wikipedia, though. Wikipedia is fully editable, but I don't go on there personally and edit it. And so I'm going to go in here and type in Stan. Oh, boy. Dan Dukes. Man. Here he is.

• 13:09Speaker 02

  Oh, God, come watch you delete this.

• 13:10Joshua Fields Millburn?

  All right, come on over.

• 13:13Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Here he is. You can see it's got his home address.

• 13:19Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Man, it's all in here.

• 13:22Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Let's edit it. We go down to the bottom. Delete contact.

• 13:28Joshua Fields Millburn?

  No results found for Stan.

• 13:32Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Come on.

• 13:34Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Now, when I first thought about that, when I thought of Richard's question, I thought, well, why would I, why would I delete that?

• 13:42Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Because I don't need to keep holding on to it, right? The pains of the past keep us from the peace of the present. They're constantly like being dragged into the moment. I'm clinging to the past in a way. And that's a recipe for regret. If I continue to cling to the past, it's impossible to to live in the moment. We did an episode, one of my favorite episodes called Pain of Clinging. I think it was 395. We'll put a link to it in the show notes. And in Richard's question, he talks about being closer to contentment. And when I talk about the pain of clinging, I also mean the pain of clinging to contentment, or the ideal of what contentment is, right? Because it's not just like the clinging to the past.

• 14:27Joshua Fields Millburn?

  It's like clinging to the things that I think will make me happy. Any sort of clinging, which is different from holding on. We hold on when necessary. We cling out of obligation, out of fear, out of a sense of lack and scarcity. Right? And so why was I holding on to Stan's contact? There are a couple of reasons. One is I just didn't think about it. And I thought about, are there contacts on my phone that I don't use anymore? I'm like, well, I'm not sure. There are a lot of just for when. But Stan's wasn't a just for when. I'm never going to need that again. And so it wasn't a just in case. It wasn't even an emergency item. Why would I need that anymore? I don't. So I'm giving myself permission to let it go. So that brings us to the second question that Richard was asking here.

• 15:10Joshua Fields Millburn?

  What if I regret getting rid of something?

• 15:15Speaker 02

  Do you regret getting rid of Stan's contact?

• 15:18Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I don't, not yet.

• 15:19Speaker 02

  Not yet.

• 15:20Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 15:20Speaker 02

  Too so.

• 15:21Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Right. Although sometimes you could get rid of something. I love what Nicodemus says. He says, if I ever re- People ask you, is there anything you've ever let go of that you regret letting go of? And Ryan says- If, no, but if I did regret it, I'd also let go of the regret.

• 15:36Speaker 02

  Oh, that's so good. That's so good. Regret is a two-sided coin and it has most of its power when we treat it like it only has one side. What if I regret leaving this job? What if you regret staying too long?

• 15:50Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Hmm.

• 15:51Speaker 02

  What if I regret saying goodbye to this relationship? What if you regret wasting five years of your life staying in it? And then it ends poorly and you say to yourself, I should have followed my gut five years ago. So we can regret staying, we can regret going, we can regret holding on, we can regret holding on too long or letting go too soon. So my, my counter question would be, what if I regret hanging on to things and continuing this overwhelm? And let's be clear, there's no objectively minimalist number of contacts that you're allowed to have in your phone.

• 16:26Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Back in the day, there was the Nokia 5165 held 99 contacts and that was it.

• 16:31Speaker 02

  Hey.

• 16:32Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I like that. If you upgraded to the 6160, then you got 199 contacts. You functionally doubled your amount of contacts for an extra hundred bucks.

• 16:40Speaker 02

  99 contacts, too many ain't, ain't no, ain't a problem.

• 16:43Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I got it.

• 16:45Speaker 02

  I'm glad.

• 16:45Joshua Fields Millburn?

  We'll workshop that later. We'll wait till the break.

• 16:48Speaker 02

  Pete, can you edit that in post, please? Make it rhyme or something like that? Make it sound cool for the kids.

• 16:53Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Nope, that was perfect. A plus.

• 16:57Speaker 02

  But you know, so there's no, there's no wrong number for you to have. But if you're at peace, you're not asking this question, right?

• 17:05Joshua Fields Millburn?

  That's right.

• 17:05Speaker 02

  If you look at your phone and go, hey, man, this is just like Wikipedia. I'm not, not gonna use everything that's in there, but I can search for what I want when I want it. And I love having all that information at my disposal. That's not how you feel. You're asking this question because when you look at your contacts or when you think about them, it creates a sense of overwhelm in your life. And so my second question for you is, what is that overwhelm stopping you from doing? What is that compromising in your life? How are you failing to connect with other people as richly and deeply as you could be because of that overwhelm? Because one of the things about overwhelm, whether it's getting started with cleaning your room, getting started with. Doing your taxes, whatever it may be. When you've just got so much information to deal with, it makes it easier for you to procrastinate and be like, oh,

• 17:50Speaker 02

  I just won't do anything because I just have so much to contend with. That also happens in relationships. When you've got so many people to keep up with, it makes it harder to send a happy birthday text to everybody that you love. It makes it harder to take two minutes and say, I'm just gonna, you know, tell my aunt that I love her and I appreciate her and I was just thinking about her, didn't need anything, just wanted to say hi, I hope all as well. Those little things that we do make life so rich. But when you have billions of people to do it for, you just don't do it at all because it feels like, ah, it's just unsustainable. So what, what possibilities are open to you if you simplify? And what if one day you experience the joy of that and you go, man, I should have did this sooner?

• 18:29Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, yeah, I regret not doing this sooner, right? And usually that's one of the things, that's, that tends to be, if I ever have any regrets, it's almost always that, I wish I would have done this sooner. I wish I wouldn't have made it as big in my head as I did because in real life it was small and inconsequential and relatively easy to do. And now I, I look in that rearview and I say, why didn't I do that sooner? And so one other practical way to look at any contact in your phone is like, what would happen if this went missing, right? Spontaneous combustion rule for it, right? Well, would it inconvenience me? If so, then I don't want to remove it. Like if TK's number was somehow deleted from my phone,

• 19:12Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I was like, ah, hey Sean, can you give me TK's number so I can put it back into my phone? That'd be an inconvenience, it's unnecessary, right? But if it was my plumber and it went missing and it's bothering me that it's there on my phone, then I would just delete it. If it's bothering me and it's relatively inconsequential, then I'm giving myself permission to delete it. Even if it adds a little bit of friction to my future, it makes the moment so much smoother. Can we touch on one last thing with Richard here? Because he, he said something that I can't leave behind. He said, I'm 57 now. And my past is bigger than my future. Let's disagree with him for a moment.

• 19:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. My gosh, so even if you came at me with the argument that the probability of your lifespan is such that you've got more years ahead of you, behind you than ahead of you. And we just didn't dispute that at all. We took that as axiomatic. That's only one way to measure the richness of a life. Right? There are so many lives where it's like, wow, you really see that story come together. You really see their legacy sealed. You really see the impact they have on humanity in those last several years. I think about something that Alan Watts's son observed of him is that his father spent most of his life,

• 20:36Speaker 02

  you know, he was a professor, as a very serious intellectual. And he didn't even seem to have a great sense of humor about himself. But in those latter years, Alan Watts just kind of let go. And he didn't take himself seriously anymore. And he had this way of engaging very serious ideas with this openness and non-seriousness about it. And it wasn't so much like a comedian would do. And it's not like if you go listen to Alan Watts, he'll just be laughing. But there's a playful quality about it.

• 21:04Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 21:05Speaker 02

  That doesn't, that's not silly. It's just a non-seriousness about it. And so, so many lives, it's like, oh, you just get to that point where you just like, you say yes to the right things. And sometimes your latter years can be the richest years. They can be the most powerful years of your life. And so I think it's always healthy to question that assumption that my greatest years, or most of my years, or most of my life is behind me.

• 21:29Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I can't wait until Kapil Gupta gets to that phase in life. How fun is that going to be?

• 21:35Speaker 02

  What do you mean?

• 21:36Joshua Fields Millburn?

  If we see a silly Kapil Gupta. Can you imagine? I mean, I know that's your favorite episode that we've ever done, 498 nonsense with Kapil Gupta. And I really enjoyed that conversation. But I can imagine him taking the Alan Watts approach because they're two of my favorite thinkers. And I can imagine him letting go of some of that seriousness. I wouldn't even call it seriousness because I think Alan Watts was still serious, but he was no longer stiff in the same way. He was not as rigid and as Alan Watts said, he became more wiggly.

• 22:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:09Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And I find that to be interesting. The thing that I would rebut Richard with is like, when you say, my past is bigger than my future. I would say your present is so much bigger than your past. Right now is so much bigger than just looking back and all the things that happened and regretting it and lamenting it and being frustrated by it and trying to reconstruct the story in your mind or retell the story. That's so small. The present, the moment, the now is so much bigger than all of that. One last line on page three today, I'm gonna, one of my added values, we have two added values today.

• 22:54Joshua Fields Millburn?

  One of them is Justin Bieber from his new album. The opening track is called Speed Demon. He has this lyric in there, he said, "I got a lot of mountains to climb. Had to leave some baggage behind." Oh, Richard, it sounds like you're carrying some baggage, some digital baggage in that phone. There's some mountains you want to climb now at age 57. And so you might have to leave some of that baggage behind if you want to continue to climb. I'd love to send you a copy of our book, Essential. Also, let's set him up with a clutter counseling session. I think there's a lot more to unpack with him, more than the 20 minutes that we've spent here with Richard. If anyone else wants to book a clutter counseling session, talk about digital clutter or physical clutter

• 23:38Joshua Fields Millburn?

  or mental clutter, spiritual clutter, emotional clutter, relationship clutter. You can head on over to theminimalists.com, click counseling at the top and you can book a session with TK. Next month's calendar. Just opened up. What's the most popular kind of clutter you're dealing with these days?

• 23:53Speaker 02

  Lately, it's been professional clutter, people that are looking to make a transition in their careers, people that are getting into the workplace, or people that are struggling with things at their job. Sometimes leaders who have people that they're trying to manage, sometimes people that are dealing with supervisors or coworker issues, jealousy, competition, unfairness, not being heard. So professional clutter has come up quite a bit lately. And then I would say the second place as of recent has been relationship clutter. And that's just one that plays a role in every kind of clutter we experience, whether it's physical clutter, financial clutter, emotional clutter, because, man, we experience who we are the most in a certain kind of way when we encounter other people. Alan Watts says this, he goes,

• 24:38Speaker 02

  "You're not really skinny until you're with someone else. You're not rich or poor until you bring in someone else," right? Because whether you're tall, or short, or any of these things comes about through relationships. So relationship is like a mirror that causes us to look at a lot of difficulties. This one comes up a lot in my sessions.

• 24:55Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Let's move on to the lightning round. The question of the week this week is, what's something from your past that's getting in the way of your present? What's something from your past that's getting in the way of your present? By the way, we always answer these questions with a short, shareable, minimal maxim. You can find this episode's maxims over in the show notes. And also, we'll email you those maxims every Monday for free if you sign up for our email newsletter over at theminalists.com. Now, before we get to our pithy answers, TK, I've got some questions here. Savvy D. collected a whole page of responses from our audience. What's something from your past that's getting in the way

• 25:38Joshua Fields Millburn?

  of your present? Connie says, "The guilt I carry from putting my kids through a divorce seven years ago." Tell me a bit about guilt here and what Connie's experiencing.

• 25:53Speaker 02

  These words get used in a lot of different ways and I want to respect that, you know, but I often make a distinction stipulatively between guilt and remorse, where guilt tends to be, to move one towards self condemnation, a sense of like, "I am a screw up", statements about the nature of our being, who I am. "I am a screw up. I am a failure. I am this or that." Whereas remorse is the ability to look back on a choice you made and say, "Hey, there's something to be learned about how I can make decisions in the future based on what I would do if I could go back and do that all over again. Maybe I would still leave that situation. Maybe I would still would come to the same conclusion, but maybe I would articulate it a little different. Maybe I would bring other people in a little bit differently.

• 26:38Speaker 02

  Maybe I would, you know, prepare other people in a different way." And so remorse is always a learning opportunity, but guilt tends to take you away from the people that you're feeling guilty for and make you less valuable to them. And so one of the greatest gifts you can give to your children, if you really feel bad about what you put them through, is to say, "Hey, I'm gonna let go of any of self-centeredness that gets caught up in the guilt game. I'm gonna take a look at that situation and ask what I can learn. And then if I need to talk with them and say, "Hey, I feel really bad about the way I handled this and what I put you through. Can I get your feedback on this? Is there anything you think I could have done differently? Or you think that I can learn today or just hear from you that would be helpful to me?"

• 27:23Speaker 02

  That probably would be healing to them. And it might give them the opportunity to say things to you that might make it easier for you to let go and realize that the narrative that you're telling yourself is an absolute.

• 27:36Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Lee says, "A past love that never faded still shapes my present." That's a beautiful line, right?

• 27:43Speaker 02

  Wow, bars.

• 27:43Joshua Fields Millburn?

  "A past love that never faded still shapes my present." 38 years ago, she was my first girlfriend. And even now, she has never left my heart. I am moving through divorce while she walks beside her partner in his final chapter. For decades, we have... Each lived in long, loveless relationships, yet somehow we've always found our way back to one another. This time, we have chosen to wait patiently, honorably, until life allows us to finally be together. PK, there's something beautiful and poetic about this, but there's also something kind of sad there that I'm sensing in Lee's words.

• 28:27Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Belonging.

• 28:29Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, there's this fascinating narrative, but then there's some resistance to the narrative as well. And the question I'd ask in a situation like this is, if I believe this is where my life is headed, do I have the room in my heart to move towards that in a way that allows me to also be grateful for my present? In a way that allows me to also make peace with where I am right now? Sometimes that failure to make peace with where we are right now gets in the way of what it is that we're pursuing. I actually served a couple when I used to work at Gulfstream Restaurant in Century City, and that restaurant is no longer there.

• 29:11Speaker 02

  But I served a couple who had fallen in love like 30 years ago, but it just didn't work out. The timing wasn't right. And they went and lived their separate lives, and they both got married and everything. And both of their spouses died. And they were there because they had got back together. And of course, I was like, no, y'all didn't kill them, did y'all? So they said no, and I believe them. They seemed sincere. But I thought it was an amazing story. And so if your story turns out in that way, that's great. But it gets in the way of your joy if you're looking at reality as something like, but you won't let me have what I need right now.

• 29:54Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, yeah. Alexa says, "The weight of my last relationship gets in the way. My ex would criticize my appearance constantly, make empty promises, and would leave me places if I upset him." Unfortunately, when I look at myself, or if I receive a compliment, all I hear are his harsh words. I think that makes it even harder in my case, because he still tries to check in, even though it's been 13 years. I block him, but he just creates a new profile. And so I feel like I can never escape. BK, how do we, how do we escape these ghosts from the past that won't leave us alone?

• 30:38Speaker 02

  I mean, ghosts are all right by me. You know, ghosts usually have something to teach us. The way you deal with a ghost is, is you stop running, because you realize, if it's a ghost, it can move through the walls. You know what I mean? I don't know what running's gonna do. Like, this ghost can get me whenever he wants, and if he hasn't gotten me, that's either because he's unable to, or he doesn't want to. And so what's this ghost trying to tell me? You know, that, that kind of makes the ghost less interesting. That kind of makes the ghost less intimidating. When you just stop, it's kind of like the old episodes of Scooby Doo, where they spend the whole episode afraid of ghosts. And then in the last scene, they pull the sheets off, and they're like, oh, it's Mr. Barney, the school janitor. He's

• 31:19Speaker 02

  like, oh, sorry, guys. I was just angry at someone. It's like, we pull the sheets off the ghost when we say, hey, what is it you're trying to teach me? But I think the kind of ghost you're dealing with sounds to me like a stalker. Sounds like a very inappropriate ghost. And it might be worth having some conversations with some professionals about what you can do to limit the exposure, or get a stronger message sent out to him to chill, because it sounds like you're not interested in these check-ins. If you block them, and you keep blocking them, and he's just playing the, I'm gonna create a new profile, a new identity game, and still check in on you. That's not checking in. That's dishonoring your boundaries. That's disrespecting your free will. And that's, that's a very intimidating,

• 32:04Speaker 02

  unhealthy sort of thing.

• 32:05Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I agree. And you don't owe him anything. You don't owe him. If you wanted to give him an explanation, or a sit-down, or whatever, if you were compelled, if you personally felt compelled, not that he manipulated you into it, but if you felt compelled because of some sense of closure, or whatever, that's fine. But it sounds

• 32:19Speaker 02

  Like you've already gone through that step and you've probably gone through that step several times at this point. So there'd be nothing wrong with getting restraining order. That's not the ghost part that I'm talking about. That is the legal part where it's like, hey, if this person's harassing you, you can get a restraining order against that person. But even if he was, if we took out that last sentence here, he still haunts her in all of these other ways, right? The harsh words. Someone gives her a compliment and all she can think of is something snide he would say to her. Yeah. That's, that's so tough. And to have heard that years and years and years, it can, it can do a number on your confidence. I think about that Whitney Houston song, "I Didn't Know My Own Strength." You know, we all have the right to

• 33:02Speaker 02

  know our own strength, to know our own beauty, to know our own value. And some people can get in our heads in such a way and do so much emotional verbal abuse that we can fail to know who we are. And so I think it's so important to do the best that you can to not only surround yourself with people who affirm what is good in you, but to actually make it a spiritual practice of sorts, to write some of the things down in terms of what you appreciate about yourself and the choices that you made, the positive impact you think you've had on other people and on your world, and to affirm that, to speak that out loud, to practice thinking those thoughts, so that over time you can quiet that other voice and feed that more prominent voice that deserves your audience.

• 33:46Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And usually those voices are liars. Those ghosts in my head are liars, right? And as soon as I say it out loud, I mean, for me, when it came down to decluttering, I couldn't let go of even a single shirt that I never wore at first, because it was like, the thought in my mind, even though I didn't articulate it in the English language, the feeling that I have was, "I'm incomplete without this shirt." But as soon as I get it out in the open, whether I write that down or I say it out loud, for me, it's powerful to say it aloud, but writing it down can be really powerful as well, or even doing both. I realize how absurd that is. "I'm incomplete without this shirt?"

• 34:23Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Huh. That's a lie. And what happens? It's not a ghost, it's just vapor and it disappears as soon as I recognize it as a lie. Let's do one more from Adrienne. Adrienne says, "The influence of beauty marketing is a kind of clutter. As a mature woman, I don't want to wear makeup or color my hair." Same here.

• 34:46Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Although I had a little zit today, I put a little concealer on for the video podcast. This is the thing, we're doing the video podcast again. I've got this little bit of concealer here that Savvy D brought over for me. Thank you, Savvy D. I think he wears it in all of his skating videos.

• 35:01Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Return to text. I just want to be naturally mean. However, the decades of messages I've received about being, quote, "pretty", and how being a woman means having to look a certain way, get in the way of me being content with the woman I now look like. And so there's another story here. This is a clinging to the past as well. We all age, the vessels that we're in. And, you know, it's unfortunate that we have in our culture, a particular reverie for being 23 years old, right? Yeah. And that's not in every culture, though. I mean, I get that in terms of sexual reproduction,

• 35:44Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I understand why that's biological, right? It's like the optimum childbearing ages are the things that might be the most physically attractive to us inherently. But then that gets ratcheted up so much with magazines and social media and movies and commercials and marketing. I think about one of my favorite lyrics from Joshua James. He said, "All of those models with their half a serving hips." And it's about like what we revere now, or what marketing really reveres, is starving ourselves in order to look good, right?

• 36:27Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And in a way, malnourishing ourselves. And that's what we're doing right now with content, right? Yeah. We used to be content, but now we are content. And everything we do has to be... You could tweet that, Professor Sean. Everything that we do has to be like performative, and it has to be, it has to look good. And I'm not, there's nothing wrong with putting your best foot forward. If we do a live show, we do them every month here in Southern California. Like, I wear clothes that are clean and I want the stage to look good and I want the imagery to look good. I want there to be a great customer experience there. I want the coffee cups to have the Sunday Symposium logo on it. All of these things, right?

• 37:10Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And so I want to put my best foot forward. For the experience, but that's different from simply trying to manufacture content. It's fascinating. I've done a lot of like big TV shows, right? You go to the Today Show.

• 37:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:24Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And it's stunning on set. Like you see the set, what is shown on cameras? It's amazing. The moment you step off camera, it is just a jungle of ugly wires and cords and beat up drywall and it looks nothing like what you see. It's not real. Content is not real. There's a sign downstairs at the architect's office for UPS. And Bobby, the, the, the construction guy down there, he, English is not his first language. Uh, although he's perfectly fluent in English, but he, um, his sign up there, uh, for UPS. He said, you can just leave the packages outside. Content has no value.

• 38:07Speaker 02

  Ooh.

• 38:08Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And I read that and I'm like, oh, Bobby, I know what you mean by that, but that means something so different to me. And the thing that I would say to Adrienne is like, man,

• 38:21Joshua Fields Millburn?

  well, first off, I am most content when I'm not overwhelmed by content, right? But also that content that you're being fed, you are pretty if you are 24 and have a ton of makeup on and plastic surgery and these clothes. That's not true. It's a lie. It has no real value.

• 38:42Speaker 02

  You know, one of my latest interests inspired by this book I randomly saw in Barnes and Noble is hearing from supermodels from the eighties and nineties talk today about the things they've learned and the way they see the world based on their careers and experiences. And it's really interesting listening to people like Claudia Schiffer, people like Cindy Crawford. And I was listening to an interview with Cindy and, um, a first name basis and, and, and, and, and there was this comment where somebody was like, oh, she's so, oh, she's not as beautiful as she was in the nineties. And, uh, somebody else was like, yeah, that's

• 39:20Speaker 02

  called time. It's like, from where does this scandalization of age come from, right? You look around in LA, there are no grandmothers in LA, but grandmothers are beautiful, right?

• 39:34Joshua Fields Millburn?

  But is that the episode title? There are no grandmothers in LA?

• 39:39Speaker 02

  But being a grandmother isn't very beautiful. If you're resistant about it and you don't own it and everybody gets the impression that you're trying to compete with all of your grandkids, that looks pretty pathetic. That looks like the, "How do you do, fellow kids? Nothing wrong with being the old guy. If you're cool with being unk. Yo, what's up, y'all? Like, no, I don't want to be your friends. Now you're cool." But if you're like, "Hey, what's up, guys? What's happening after the game tonight?" It's like, oh, it just looks pathetic. But it's not about the age. It's not about the station. It's about the resistance that you have to yourself. And so, we have so many messages infiltrating our minds. And the thing I would say about this is occupancy doesn't determine ownership. Just because something is there doesn't mean it has the right to be there. If you walk in your crib and you see a raccoon, it's an occupant, but it doesn't have a right to be there. You get rid of it.

• 40:23Speaker 02

  And so, when we have all of these thoughts like, "Oh, I'm so ugly. Oh, I'm so old. Oh, I'm such a loser. I'm so uncool." There's an opportunity to say, "Wait a minute. Just because this thought occurs in my head doesn't mean it belongs to me. I don't have to take ownership of this thought. This is not my thought. This is the influence of an external world that doesn't have my best interests in mind." And the test that you can use is the following question. What happens to me if I allow myself to believe this? Who wins if I accept that as true? And if the answer is somebody other than you, then let go of that thought. You know, who wins? If I believe that I'm ugly and I believe that I'm not cool enough? Well, whoever is trying to sell me something, that's who wins. But who wins if I say, "Nah, man, I think I'm beautiful exactly as I need to be, even if a lot of people disagree.

• 41:08Speaker 02

  Well, now I win and the people in my life that I serve win too."

• 41:12Joshua Fields Millburn?

  How about you, listeners? What's something from your past that's getting in the way of your present? Let us know your thoughts in the Patreon community chat, which by the way, you can join for free, even if you don't support the private podcast, although we'd love for you to support the private podcast. We have so many more callers to get to today. But first, give me something pithy, TK. What's something from your past that's getting in the way of the present?

• 41:36Speaker 02

  It's easiest to trip on the steps you've never climbed. One of the greatest obstacles would be the stories I tell myself about the things I've never done because of my pre-existing narratives about who I've always been. I see where I want to be in life. Oh, I want to go here. I want to do this. And then I consider what I have to sacrifice, what I have to, you know, where I have to discipline myself. And I say, oh, I've never done that before because I'm not a numbers guy. I've never done that before because I'm not a type A person. Like, you know, I see in the people who succeed where I want to succeed. I've never done that before because of this or that. And then that becomes a trap. You begin to trip over your own thoughts before you even get to the step.

• 42:18Speaker 02

  But when I say, you know, it's easy to trip over the steps you never climbed, that's not only literally true, right? Because when you're familiar with the step, even if it's a difficult step, you say, watch your step because you know the obstacle so you can navigate it pretty effectively. So that's literally true, but it's also spiritually true as well. And so when we encounter these unfamiliar steps, sometimes we trip over our own thoughts that says, I'm just not the kind of person who can make that leap. And what we have to do is we have to look at, look at our past with new eyes and say, no, there is some sense, some deeper energetic sense where I have taken that step before. And I have to learn to look at my life in a way that helps me say, I've already done the essence of this. I just have to apply what I have learned and what I can do in a new way.

• 43:03Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And you said, look at the past. You didn't say stare at the past. You didn't say get caught in the past, which brings me to my pithy answer here. The rearview mirror is a terrible guide. If I'm driving here down from Ojai, coming here to West Hollywood, and I'm going down the 101, if I'm just staring at that rearview mirror the whole time, I'm definitely going to run into someone, especially on the 101. It's a terrible guide. Now, I do look up in the mirror occasionally, make sure someone's not running into the back of me, or maybe there's like a sunset behind me, I want to glance up and take a look at it. But whatever it is, it's okay to glance in the rearview. It's there for a reason, but also its size is there for a reason.

• 43:46Joshua Fields Millburn?

  What's right there in front of you is that giant windshield, right there in Front of you is the now and in the rear view is this tiny little space that I can look at occasionally. I can glance back, make sure everything's okay, but I'm gonna keep my eyes on the road. I was just at a concert this, I brought my 12-year-old daughter to the Santa Barbara Bowl this weekend to see Gregory Alan Isaacoff and she was blown away by it. It was a fantastic concert. She gets really impressed when people recognize me too, so that's always, if you see me with my daughter, make sure you say hi because it super impresses her. And at a concert like that, like it was just non-stop. And so people are coming up and they're like, "Oh, you know your dad, he's amazing." And

• 44:29Joshua Fields Millburn?

  she's like, "Oh my god." Like, I could tell her I'm amazing all day and I do all these things for her, but as soon as some random stranger tells her I'm amazing, it's great. But she was so mesmerized by this concert. And there's this song by Gregory Alan Isaacoff, and we'll play it on page two coming up, but it's called "Birth." And he gets into this trance where he's singing, "Quit all that looking back. I quit all of that. Quit all that, quit all that, quit all that looking back. Quit all that, quit all that, quit all that looking back." And it just goes and goes and he's playing and he's expanding

• 45:09Joshua Fields Millburn?

  it. And what a reminder. Take your eyes off the rear view. Quit all that looking back. And I'm so free now because I quit all of that. So many more colors to get to, but first, right here, right now, let's talk about a couple of things going on in the life of the minimalist. I have two things for you, TK. Simplify everything. Our course opens up this week. It's five weeks, 17 videos, 45 declutter problem areas. We're gonna help you simplify everything in your life. This Wednesday, October 1st, is the opening for

• 45:51Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Simplify Everything. And I have here a few testimonials from some of our past students. Charlene said, "Simplify everything." Helped me solidify that minimalism applies to everything and it gave me thought exercises and insights to help me stay on the path and out of the weeds. Vicky said, "The course brought me to a deeper level of what is really important. Even my husband has joined in to keep our space peaceful and beautiful and organized." Look at that TK, decluttering so simple, even a husband can do it. And Jenny said, "This is a very well done and thoughtfully crafted course." Thank you, because we spent so much time crafting, me and you and Nicodemus,

• 46:36Joshua Fields Millburn?

  days and days and then many weeks editing this thing and putting it out there. And so it's five weeks, we simplify every area of life. We start with the physical clutter in your life and then we move on to these other areas of clutter, five total areas of clutter. Jenny says, "There's a lot of good advice and it's clear that y'all really cared about the material and the presentation. Thank you for putting together such a great course." Jenny, thank you so much and thank you to everyone who has participated. SimplifyEverything.xyz is the website and enrollment opens for, what is it? 72 hours, Sean? 72 hours only. SimplifyEverything.xyz. Declutter everything in your life.

• 47:21Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Also, this Friday, October 3rd, this Friday, October 3rd is our next Friday afternoon, minimalist Zoom. You can have a Zoom call with the minimalist. This is really where Nicodemus shows up and participates with all of our patrons. So if you're interested in having a Zoom call with me and TK and Nicodemus and Professor Sean is there and Savvy D and post-production Peter is usually there as well. Head on over to theminimalists.com/zoom for all the details. We do it the first Friday of every month. The next one is this Friday, October 3rd. Much more coming up TK, but first here's a quick minimalist tip from one of our listeners.

• 47:59Speaker 04

  Hi minimalists, I'm Jennifer. I've been listening to you guys lately, I'm a newer listener. And I have just been absolutely loving listening and been very inspired by everything that you've been sharing. I just listened to the little blip on your last podcast about half dirty clothes. This has been a big issue between my husband and I in our eight years of marriage. He likes to either throw those clothes on the floor or wob them up and put them on the shelf above the place where his clothes hang. And so I'm always wondering what these clothes are when I go to do laundry. I end up just grabbing them and putting them in the laundry basket.

• 48:44Speaker 04

  But a couple of things that crossed my mind during listening, while I was listening was, I do all the laundry in our house and we have four little kids. And so between my husband, myself and our four kids, it is a lot of laundry and I cannot keep up with it. It is very difficult. And so I tell the kids, especially when they're wearing their pajamas, that they can be worn more than once. Do not put that in the laundry basket after one night of wear. And so I'm trying to teach them that it's okay to wear clothes more than once before washing it. Also, I was just thinking about the integrity of some clothes.

• 49:28Speaker 04

  It's not good to wash it over and over and over, it just wears out faster. And so those are some things that I take into consideration when I think about wearing clothes again. I personally, I'm kind of like you, I don't sweat a whole lot or anything like that. And so I wear my clothes multiple times before I wash them. And maybe that's just because I do the laundry, I don't know. And so I'm trying to save myself some time, but I kind of have always been like that. So anyway, just wanted to share those few insights as I was listening. And also love the idea of having an actual place for my husband to be able to put his half worn clothes.

• 50:09Speaker 04

  Cause I'm trying to teach him that he doesn't always have to wear his work clothes once and then wash them. So anyway, those are my thoughts and thank you so much. And can't wait to listen to more.

• 50:24Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Jennifer, thank you so much for that useful comment. I do not envy you. Doing laundry for six people is a heroic act. Thank you for your service. It sounds like she might even be married to Nicodemus. I don't know, but when I lived with Ryan for a couple of years, he owned 15 things and he would find ways to wad them up and put them in different places and socks. Like, Ryan, you have like six socks and they're all in the living room right now. How do you do that? It's a special skill. People love that Half-Dirty Clothes episode. So we'll put a link to that in the show notes as well. For anyone else who has a listener tip or insight about this episode, or any other episode, send a voice memo to [email protected] so we can feature your voice

• 51:06Joshua Fields Millburn?

  on the show. Up next, a lot more TK, page two and page three. But first, I am kind of sweating today, man. It's a little hot in here. We gotta turn the AC on, otherwise I'm gonna have to wash the shirt tonight. Let's take a quick pandiculation break. We'll be right back.

• 51:23Joshua Fields Millburn?

  All right, y'all, that is the first 37% of episode 507. We'll see you on Patreon for the full two-hour maximal edition, which includes answers to a bunch more questions. Questions like, what everyday essentials do Joshua and TK keep in their pockets and bags? How do I differentiate between useful resources and just-in-case items? And what are seven things professional organizers say you should declutter this fall? Plus, a million more questions and simple living segments over on the Minimalist's private podcast on Patreon. When you subscribe, you can listen to our private podcast archives on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Plus, you'll gain access to

• 52:04Joshua Fields Millburn?

  all of our podcast archives, all the way back to the very first episode. The link is down 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, post-production Peter, Spire Jeff, and Spire Dave, Jordan No More, Professor Sean, Savvy D, 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.

• 52:34Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Because the opposite never works. Thanks for listening, y'all. We'll see you next time. Peace.

• 52:41Speaker 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.