526 | Precious Things

The Minimalists talk about some difficult decluttering dilemmas, including what to do with belongings left behind by deceased loved ones, why we don't need to keep every sentimental item, how to handle the endless stream of freebies we receive, and much more. Discussed in this episode: How do I declutter my late husband's belongings while honoring what my young daughters might one day wish I had kept? (3:46) What's your most cherished sentimental item, and under what conditions would you let it go? (20:48) Right Here, Right Now: We've redesigned The Simple Newsletter—and readers are loving it. (35:08) Listener Tip: What to do with all the freebies your kids get. (37:22) Have a question for the show? Call 406-219-7839 or email a voice memo to [email protected]. 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

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.

• 0:38Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes. Hello, everybody. Welcome to the minimalist podcast. So we discuss what it means to live a meaningful life with less. My name is Joshua Fields Milburn, and joining me here in beautiful and sunny West Hollywood, California is my good friend TK Coleman. It's a beautiful day, my man. It's just the two of us today. Just the two of us. Yes. The last few weeks, we've had guests, and we usually don't do guests every single week. It just happened that way. We had James Sexton here. We had Dr. Maya. She was amazing. Of course, Nicodemus was here. He's not really a guest. When he's here, we're the guests. Yeah. And then when Steve Patterson showed up last week as well. We've been on a guest winning streak.

• 1:22Joshua Fields Millburn?

  It really has been amazing. And so we're going to have to bring it today, TK. Yes, sir. Well, you're gonna have to bring it. I'm just, I'm just here to hand the ball to you and let you dunk over and over and over. Coming up on this episode, we're diving into some difficult decluttering dilemmas, including what to do with belongings left behind by deceased loved ones. Why we don't need to keep every sentimental item. How to handle the endless stream of freebies that we receive, and much, much more. Also, on page three, TK, you probably noticed, if you're watching the video version of this, I'm wearing a jacket right now. Yes, sir. On page, actually, page two, we have a caller who called in. He says, what are the six jackets that Josh owns?

• 2:07Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And you'll find that it's the one area of my life I'm not necessarily uber minimalist or ultra minimalist, but I do want to make a case for owning multiple jackets for me. So I brought my jackets that I own. They're all over there. All six? I have, I have five of them here with me today. And the sixth one is at home. I ran out of arm space to carry them all. But I, I assume one for each LeBron ring. I mean, I'm sorry. One for each ring and Michael Jordan ass.

• 2:37Joshua Fields Millburn?

  No comment. Let's start with our callers, TK. If you have a question or a comment for our show, give us a call. The phone number 406-219-7839. Or you can email a voice recording right from your phone to [email protected]. Let us know if you're a Patreon subscriber so we can prioritize your message. And shout out to our patrons. Your support keeps this podcast 100% advertisement free because, sing along at home, y'all. Advertisements suck. I love the little soliloquy that Jim Smith, or Jim Sexton went on, the divorce attorney. He talked about how a lot of divorces are caused

• 3:18Joshua Fields Millburn?

  because of advertisements. And that was fascinating to me because it creates this picture of what a life should be, what consumerism should do for a relationship, for a marriage, for your life. And we are often so discontented by the ads that are constantly fed to us. In fact, on page three, I have a sucky ad. It's probably the most compelling sucky ad that we've ever had on this show. So I'll show that to you. But let's dive into the questions right now. Our first question is from Dana.

• 3:50Speaker 02

  Hey guys, my name is Dana. I'm calling from Missouri. I've got kind of a curve ball question for you. I'm wondering how I can declutter my home and choose what has meaning of a loved one who's passed when my perception of the items is not the only one that I'm taking into account. I'm going to go ahead and read what I wrote to your Facebook page and I was suggested that I record for you. So I'm just going to read it. To explain, my husband died in 2024 and our daughters were five and two years old. We were high school sweethearts and together for 17 years, so there's a lot of stuff. I saved his important things to me, you know, his golf clubs, his organ donor medal. I made teddy bears for my girls out of his shirts, Christmas ornaments with his golf balls and a bunch of other things. But when it comes to the real decluttering and

• 4:35Speaker 02

  clearing out, I'm finding it hard to put myself in the mind of a little girl. I don't want her to grow up, or both my girls, I don't want them to grow up wishing mom hadn't gotten rid of X. So the X, as a math teacher, represents the unknown, the variable, what I don't know, and unfortunately, I can't solve this one. I also feel like they're too small to be a part of it. Like, getting rid of anything Dad kind of hurts at this point. Even putting our Christmas decorations away that year stung because he was with us when they went up. Sorry, I know that's a little heavy, but I hope you have some words of wisdom or advice. Thank you.

• 5:12Joshua Fields Millburn?

  TK, I'm happy to start with something heavy here, and this is heavy. You're still in the immediate aftermath of this. 2024 was not that long ago. And yes, holding on to sentimental items at some point becomes a fruitless pursuit when we hold on to everything, when everything becomes sentimental. I just wrote about this in the Simple Newsletter this past week. I wrote this essay about absurd things. I met a guy on the street, not far from here, up on Melrose Place. I was just walking down the street, he goes, "Hey, you're the minimalist guy." And he was telling me he saw our last documentary on Netflix, The Lessons Now. And he said, "After I watched that, I took an inventory

• 5:54Joshua Fields Millburn?

  of everything that I own." And I'm like, "Do you like, what do you mean?" He's like, "I put a spreadsheet together and pretended I had like a retail store inventory of everything I owned." And, and what he realized as he was cataloging all of this stuff, he realized the absurdity of many of the things that he was holding on to, because he wasn't really holding on to the things. It wasn't the things that were absurd. He was still holding on to a story that he realized when he brought it all out in the open, so to speak. We have something called- The out in the open rule and it's sort of bringing everything out of your cabinets and drawers and basement and attic. And if you put it all out in the middle of your living room, it instantly becomes clutter, even if it isn't clutter. But then you're

• 6:36Joshua Fields Millburn?

  forced to deal with those things. And I think taking an inventory of your things does the same thing. Now, I don't recommend grabbing a spreadsheet and spending days indexing all of your items, obviously. But I do think it's instructive to say, okay, what purpose did this serve? What purpose does this serve now? And do I want to continue to carry this forward? Because I want you to realize that if you're struggling with letting go of a sentimental item, those are the things that are the most difficult to let go of. I started this whole minimalism journey, if you want to call it that, when my mom died. And I was in her one bedroom apartment filled with three houses worth of stuff. And everything felt so precious

• 7:19Joshua Fields Millburn?

  because my mother's death was so near. It had happened just the day before. And so all of these things are obviously precious to me. But the thing I wrote about in that newsletter, subscribe to the newsletter if you don't, because I send these out, these essays out for free each Monday. But the thing I pointed out is that if everything is precious, nothing is. Yeah. And that was when I realized that, oh, yeah, I do want to hold on to some of these things are precious to me. But they're less precious if I pretend that everything is precious.

• 7:51Speaker 03

  Oh, man, that is so right on and good. You know, to use mathematics here, I'm just gonna shoehorn it in. I don't think there's a mathematical formula for being able to successfully anticipate what your children will hate or appreciate about all the different ways you raised them.

• 8:08Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Wouldn't it be nice if there was?

• 8:09Speaker 03

  Oh, it'd be so nice. But part of the frustration of being a parent is that you make all sorts of sacrifices for your kids. And they grow up to say, I appreciate these. And I think my life was devoid of something important because of those. And you can't accurately predict which ones they will be. So for instance, maybe you have two children and you decide, I'm gonna homeschool my children because I want a Proper emphasis on creativity that they're not going to get from the traditional system. I want to make sure they learn more critical thinking than what's emphasized by the traditional system. And you raise them up and one of your children says, thank you so much, mom, for giving me a robust education.

• 8:50Speaker 03

  And the other may say, thanks a lot for giving me, you know, for making me socially inept and making me the awkward person that I am today. You can, you know, teach your children all the different religions so that they can make their own choice and think critically and have a concept of the whole ideological landscape. And one will say, well, thank you for giving me options and exposing me to diversity. And then the other might say, thanks for making me the confused, indecisive person that I am now. I wish you had just put your foot down and told me what to believe about all this stuff. You can't know. Now, this doesn't mean you shouldn't make decisions. It doesn't mean you're wrong for trying to anticipate what you might know they'll like or dislike.

• 9:30Speaker 03

  But it means that our decisions about what we do for our children have to come from a deeper place than trying to predict how they'll react. This is the importance of having guiding principles and underlying values that say, I believe this is the right way to do things, or I believe this is a good or healthy way to do things. And my child may grow up and decide to do things in a different way, and I give them that space to do it. But until they grow up and are able to make decisions for themselves, I've got to treat the person who actually has the responsibility as the one with the authority to determine what the underlying values will be. And I think that's how we have to begin wrapping our minds around this.

• 10:10Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I would think about the worst case scenario here, just to help illustrate that everything is going to be okay, regardless of what path you take forward. So let's say hypothetically, because I've met several people whose houses are destroyed in some sort of natural disaster. Usually it's a fire and especially out here in Los Angeles, just last year, about a year ago, there were all these houses that burned down and I've met several people at this point who have lost, functionally lost everything and certainly lost all their sentimental items that they couldn't go grab right away. Or they even had to make a decision. Uh oh, I have 10 minutes to evacuate the house. What do I want to grab at that point? And that's a useful exercise.

• 10:53Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Nick Ademas and I did a whole episode about emergency items back in the day. And Savvy D can put a link to that in the show notes. But in there, I talk about, I have a go bag, which if there's a real emergency, there's a go bag that's relatively close to the exit of my house that I can grab. And I can be out, as Neil McCully says in Heat, in 30 seconds flat. Never bring anything into your life that you can't walk away from in 30 seconds flat. And while I don't agree with that literally, I think as a metaphor, that is really useful. I can walk away from any of this and it's going to be okay. It doesn't mean I have to walk away from it. It doesn't mean I should walk away from it. It doesn't mean that it's good to walk away from it. It doesn't mean that I need to jettison everything.

• 11:36Joshua Fields Millburn?

  It just helps you realize that if my house were to burn down today, including every single sentimental item that I own, everything's going to be okay. And with that in mind, now I get to decide, okay, what do I actually want to hold on to? And the next exercise is, okay, if I have 10 minutes to evacuate my house, what are the things I'm certain I would grab? Of course, practical things, I'm going to grab my computer, I'll grab that go bag. And then what sentimental items am I going to grab? I have a box of pictures that I might grab, but even those are stored in the cloud now. The ones that I wanted to scan are actually stored there. And so I understand that I'm going to be fine without those things.

• 12:18Joshua Fields Millburn?

  The key of holding on to the things is what things are going to enhance my life in some way? What things amplify my innate joy that is already here? I want to hold on to those. And then I want to get rid of the things that might be getting in the way. And it doesn't mean you need to rush into it, Dana, either. In fact, rushing into it right now can be one of two knee jerk reactions. I'm going to hold on to everything? Because I need to preserve my husband's memory. Well, we all know that the memory is not in the things, it's in us. But also, you recognize that holding on to everything on a long enough timeline will turn it all into clutter. But the other knee jerk reaction is, I need to move on from this.

• 13:01Joshua Fields Millburn?

  So I just need to get rid of everything. And that could be a trap as well.

• 13:07Speaker 03

  It absolutely can. I mean, it leads to what we could call the minimalist infinite regress problem. That the problem, the potential problem you see here with getting rid of some of your husband's things, or some of the things that remind the children of the husband, actually apply to everything. So for instance, there are things you possess, they are entirely your business, but your children might associate those things with you, and those things might remind your children of fond moments they have with you. It's like when me and my wife go for walks on the beach. Sometimes we'll walk past a place and you can see a piece of furniture in there. And I'll say, oh, man, that's totally a Mama Coleman furniture piece. And she'll say, that's totally Mama Coleman, right? There are things we see all the time. There are smells, fragrances, designs that remind us of our parents.

• 13:51Speaker 03

  And so, let's say you have something that belongs to you and you think, oh, this is trash now. I want to get rid of it. Should you hold on to it? Because maybe, when your daughters grow up, they'll say, Mom, where's that teacup that you used to have? Where's that ornament that you used to have? That reminds us of precious moments we have with you. How could you dare be so selfish to throw that away? So if you apply it there, you've got to apply it with yourself. In the same way, they could get attached to something that reminds them of dad, they can get attached to something that reminds them of you. So what are you going to do there? Here's what I think a possible solution is. There's a distinction between what the children know they want and what the children don't even know about when it's not in front of them.

• 14:32Speaker 03

  And this leads us to one of the timeless pieces of advice that you and, you don't call them advice, but methods that you and Ryan have talked about for years. And that is, if you pack everything up, what are the items you can name by memory? And you don't have to take a pop quiz and pass it 100% five minutes after you pack them up. But if you're not looking at it and you have yourself a week or even a month, can you even remember what's in those boxes? So many times, we don't remember that we had something. We open up the boxes and then we go, oh, this is the most important thing to me. So important that you have 30 days to remember that you had it. No need for it ever arose. You couldn't even identify it on a list, but yet it's so important because you're looking at it right now.

• 15:16Speaker 03

  So my question is, how will they know? Sure, they'll know if they cried over you letting it go. Those are the things you can keep. But out of all of that stuff, how will they know all of that is gone? Is it really that important to them? Do they really know that they like it now? And so I would say there's a modified approach that you modified version of that approach that you can take here, where you can sit down with the children and if they have things they cry over, you can keep those for a time, at least until there's an opportunity to have a more mature conversation about it down the road. But I think if they can't name it, if they can't even recall it, you treat it just like your stuff that you are definitely going to get rid of in spite of the possibility that they could say, Mom, why'd you get rid of that thing?

• 16:00Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, in our new audiobook, Very Very Simple, which folks can download for free at veryversimples.com. TK and I, we, between each chapter, we'd have like a little mini conversation, a mini podcast about each of those. And one of the, the rules or tools, as we call it in Very Very Simple, which are 12 tools for a simpler life. One of them is the junkless drawer rule. And it describes kind of what you're describing here, but it applies to the junk drawer. But I think we can expand it to any area of our home or any area of our life, as a matter of fact. So the way it works is I set a timer for two minutes and I look at the junk drawer without opening it. I have a blank piece of paper and I write down everything I think is in the junk drawer. And I have two minutes to do it.

• 16:42Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And I open the junk drawer and anything that's not on my paper, I give myself permission to let it go because, oh, I didn't even know that was still in there. And that works over 90% of the time. It's like, oh yeah, I didn't really need this. I didn't even know it was in here, right? But can I do that to other things? Yeah, I could do it to boxes of sentimental items. Thing I'll say to Dana is I do think I know your kids are young and it's not up to them. You don't want to give them full autonomy and allow them. They're the ones who are going to make the decisions of what to get rid of and what to keep. No, it's ultimately up to you, but I do think it's valuable to get them involved in the process here. There are two reasons for that. One is they do feel a sense of remembering around their father.

• 17:25Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And so it becomes this gathering around a campfire, except it's not a campfire. It's a it's gathering around the sentimental items and having discussions around these things. And these are difficult discussions, but your kids need to be able to have those difficult discussions. We can't bubble wrap their world forever. And so I think that's important, but I think it's also important for us when we're dealing with our kids to allow them to to experience the pain of loss with you. You don't want to carry this on your own. Now, of course, you want to keep them safe and sheltered and you don't want to. You don't want to cause them additional pain, but they're going to suffer in their life. That's the one thing we can guarantee.

• 18:08Joshua Fields Millburn?

  If you have kids, they're going to suffer.

• 18:11Speaker 03

  They will ask you to buy at least one toy, one game, one something that will at that time mean the world to them. And they will swear that it does, and you will break their hearts one of those times.

• 18:21Joshua Fields Millburn?

  That's right, right. Amid their suffering, when you're explaining these things to them, it also helps you with your own suffering. And that's where I was going with this is I know when I had my daughter Ella and when she was little and I was trying to explain minimalism to a three year old or four year old. It really helped me as well because I couldn't use erudite terms and and multi syllable words. And she's like, what does that mean? And it allowed me to get more basic and more functional and understand someone who had no concept of what minimalism is and why do we do this? And so as you're letting go of some, certainly not all, you get to decide what.

• 19:05Joshua Fields Millburn?

  But as you let go of some of your late husband's things and you get your kids in the process. You're explaining to them in a way, you're teaching them. And the old adage ends up being true, that the teacher learns more than the students. Or you're learning just as much as the students in this case. Dana, I'd love to send you a copy of Emotional Clutter. It is TK's first book. It's available as an ebook for free over at theminimalists.com or as an audiobook as well. I'd be happy to send you the audiobook version. You can find that on our website also. And a clutter counseling session, because there's a lot of emotional clutter around this. And of course, there's the physical clutter that's associated with it.

• 19:48Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And then there's identity clutter that gets tied up in all of this as well. And so I'd love to give you a clutter counseling session with TK Coleman. Anyone else who is listening and wants a clutter counseling session, theminimalists.com. Just click Counseling at the top and this month's calendar is open. You can book a session today from anywhere in the world via Zoom. Before we get back to our callers, TK, let's go into the Patreon community chats. Question of the week. We'll answer these questions with a short, shareable minimal maxim. You can find this episode's maxims in the show notes at theminimalists.com/podcast. And every minimal maxim ever at minimalmaxims.com.

• 20:29Joshua Fields Millburn?

  We'll also deliver our weekly show notes directly to your inbox, including seven new maxims. Every Monday for free and a beautiful new essay that I'm working on as well. If you sign up for our email newsletter at theminimalists.com. We'll never send you spam or junk or advertisements, but we'll start your week off with a dose of simplicity. All right, question of the week, TK. What's your most cherished sentimental item? And under what conditions would you let it go? What is your most cherished sentimental item? And under what conditions would you let it go? Before we get to our pithy answers, Lee said, my most cherished sentimental item is a photograph

• 21:12Joshua Fields Millburn?

  of my daughter Ellie when she was five years old. She's sitting on my shoulders in a meadow. It's an accidental photo, not posing, just natural joy on our faces. It's an anchor for memories and emotion, a touch tone we can return to whenever we need grounding or perspective. This is why it holds more weight than anything else could. But if it was deleted, that would be fine. We would recreate it. But at 13, I think she would squish me.

• 21:47Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Now, TK, I love this perspective. It's super grounded. And I also like that it's one photo, not a thousand photos. Why is it that sentimental items seem to get watered down if we have thousands of them?

• 22:00Speaker 03

  I mean, there's something that we all intuit that good things get watered down when we spread them too far and thin. It's sort of like if you walked into a restaurant and the host said, Joshua, it's so good to see you. Man, everybody loves it when you come in. It's so awesome. That feel good. And then five seconds later, you hear someone say, Brian, it's so good to see you. Everyone gets really excited when you come in. Now, all of a sudden, what meant a lot to you a few minutes ago just doesn't mean as much because we apply it to everything. And if we apply it to everything, it doesn't mean anything. Because meaning is a signifier. It's saying, this is what makes that distinct from this.

• 22:39Speaker 03

  And if we lose that distinction, then it's just all some meaningless nebulous blob of whatever. And so it's the same with our possessions. When we say this is special, well, it's pulling it out from everything else and saying it's extraordinary to me for these reasons. If everything has those properties, there's no reason to put any focus on that.

• 23:01Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Right, right. If everything's extraordinary, then by definition, the extraordinary is ordinary, right? My favorite writer is David Foster Wallace. And one of the things he talked to Michael Silverblatt about once on WKRC was he has a show called Bookworm. And he was talking to him about how you can find extraordinariness in banal experiences, but also banality in the most extraordinary experiences. And you saw that when you read the essay about the cruise ship, right? The supposedly fun thing I'll never do again. It's supposed to be an extraordinary experience, but because everything's so over the top extraordinary, it's fun, fun, fun, capital F, capital U, capital N,

• 23:46Joshua Fields Millburn?

  in italics with an exclamation point. And you're like, oh, there's something actually incredibly banal about this. But then you can go to a Buddhist monastery, or you go to like a really beautiful chapel somewhere. And it's a supposedly banal experience of just sitting there in quiet solitude. But there's something extraordinary within the banality of it all. And so you can, you can find both. Oh, we have another question here. This one's from Unice. My most cherished sentimental items, the violin that my family helped me buy when I was in high school.

• 24:26Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I'm in my 40s now, but I would happily let it go if my daughter or someone close to me wanted to learn how to play. TK isn't, isn't that beautiful? It's easier to, to get rid of a thing, even like a precious thing, a sentimental thing. When someone else will benefit from it. What is about generosity that helps us let go?

• 24:49Speaker 03

  Well, the value of a sentimental item is that it makes us feel good about something that represents our values. It reminds us of what we stand for, what we live for, who had an impact on us and why that matters. And all of those things are crystallized in the act of sharing. There are fewer things than sharing that meet that deep innate human desire for community, for belonging, for meaning. And so when we can see that someone would value it as much or more than we would, it's easier to let go. Because it's not, it doesn't feel like I'm just throwing it away or I'm putting it out into the ether. Or something may become of this that I would feel really bad to know about. It's, I'm actually making a difference in this person's life, a positive difference.

• 25:34Speaker 03

  And that's actually the good feeling that I get from having it. But now I get to experience it more powerfully.

• 25:39Joshua Fields Millburn?

  You're making me think, I've never thought about this before, but I don't have any sentimental items from my father. And I think part of that is I don't have any positive memories of my father. My very first memory is of him abusing my mother. And I pretty much only saw him once after age three. He died when I was nine. I saw him once when I was seven and he was mentally ill. And so like I, my memories of him are mostly negative or at best neutral. And as a result, I don't really value, I wouldn't value anything he would have left behind. It would be the residue of abuse or sadness or grief. And, and quite often when we're holding on to sentimental items and they're only reminders of some sort of grief.

• 26:26Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Well, man, that is a sign that it's gonna be way easier for me to let it go. And I actually will benefit tremendously from letting go of this grief reminder. Caterina says, "My most cherished item is the necklace I wear every day. It once belonged to my grandmother, my namesake, who carried it with the quiet resolve of her generation. Now it moves through the world with me. A reminder that two generations of Caterinas can live very different lives while holding the same meaning. I will let it go only when it is ready to be worn by someone in the family who wants it. Until then, it stays with me."

• 27:09Joshua Fields Millburn?

  TK, this is my favorite kind of sentimental item, the kind that we get to enjoy every day. Because often we hold on to sentimental items, it's just like, yeah, it's in my attic. It's in the storage locker. I pay $150 a month to keep. It's like, am I enjoying it? No, but it's, I will someday, right? And so if you enjoy a thing, it rarely feels like a burden. Often when people call into the show, they're asked about sentimental items because it feels in some way like a burden. And they feel like I shouldn't let it go, but it's a burden. So in a way, I'm telling myself I shouldn't let go of this thing that is burdening me. Which makes me want to ask you, why do some sentimental items feel like a burden?

• 27:52Speaker 03

  Well, I think it's because there's a little ambiguity in how we use that word sentimental. A sentimental item can refer to two things. One is an item that makes me feel sentimental. That's the obvious interpretation. But there's a second thing that it's often used to convey. And that is something that made someone else feel sentimental has been handed down to me. And I feel obligated to their sentimentality to hold on to it, or else I disrespect them. Those are the ones that feel like a burden. Hey, this is the wedding dress your great-great-grandmother wore. And then after her, and then after her, then after her, and you're next in line. And if you break tradition, you will be the first one. To not do this and we'll all feel really bad about it.

• 28:35Speaker 03

  And so now you have what is being called a sentimental item, but you don't have those emotions around it. You don't have that sense of tradition around it, but you feel obligated to it because you don't want to let anyone down. That's when we usually feel like these sentimental items are a burden.

• 28:51Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, it's not sentimental to me. It's sentimental to someone else and I don't want to let someone else down. And that is a big part of that burden. How about you listeners? Tell me, what, uh, what's your most cherished sentimental item? And under what conditions would you let it go? Let us know your thoughts in the Patreon community chat, which you can join for free, by the way. Okay, give me something pithy TK. What's your most cherished sentimental item? And under what conditions would you let it go?

• 29:21Speaker 03

  All right, if it no longer lifts your soul, let it go from your shelf. The whole purpose of a sentimental item is the way it makes you feel. And when it ceases to give you that good feeling and when it gives you another feeling that outweighs the good feeling, that's when it's time to let it go. I often say with respect to dreams, follow your dreams, but don't forget to let your dreams follow you. Some things that we label as dreams are actually bad habits, residue of a past self. We used to want to be this thing, but life has caused us to evolve in a new direction. That no longer reflects who we are, but it's a habit we hang on to because we've identified with it for so long. And when we really think about it, we say, oh, I don't want to waste any more time and energy on that. I don't feel that way today.

• 30:05Speaker 03

  That's how I used to feel. My most sentimental item is an icon of the Theotokos and it's a small, portable, easy to carry icon, but it's well crafted, well designed and feels like something that was made like hundreds of years ago. And it's a sentimental item, no monetary value, and I will hang on to it until it is physically impossible for me to hang on to it. It's got to deteriorate or it's got to be impossible for me to put anywhere or it's got to be the type of thing where I have to hide in order for me to keep. And at that point, it would lose its value and so I would let it go.

• 30:39Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, I think that anytime you bring up like the point of these is to make you feel good, right?

• 30:45Speaker 03

  Nothing wrong with that.

• 30:46Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Right, but on the surface, that feels shallow, right? It almost feels discordant with sentimental items. Sentimental items often do the opposite of make us feel good. They make us feel sad. They make us cling to a past that was unpleasant. And yet we cling to it out of some pious sense of duty. But what you're talking about is holding on to the things that augment your life in some way. You're like, I really enjoy this. And so what you're ultimately saying there, if I didn't get that same feeling from it, if for some reason you carve some new neuropathway that made you have a negative feeling toward that icon, then I think that's when you would also let it go. If all of a sudden it was no longer serving that purpose of, oh yeah, it feels good. I enjoy owning this, then it also becomes a type of burden.

• 31:31Speaker 03

  Quick question for you. Do you think it's possible that there's a kind of emotional sweetness, a kind of good feeling that comes from contemplating the things that are sad? And so I'm thinking about me when I listen to On Bended Knee by Boys to Man, or Try Sleeping With A Broken Heart by Alicia Keys. These are definitely heartbreak songs. And I can close my eyes and go back to a time where maybe I experienced that first heartbreak and I didn't think I was gonna make it. And there's a kind of sweetness in experiencing that tension. Or you're watching a baseball game and your team's losing and you're hanging on the edge, kind of stressed a little bit, there's a kind of tension there. But also, if a friend came up to you and said, hey, man, you could ease that tension by just not caring about the game. You say, get out of here, you don't understand what's going on.

• 32:15Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, I totally agree with that. It's pleasantness by route of unpleasantness. And that obviously is most pronounced with a lot of songs, like the ones you mentioned. It's like, oh, she broke my heart. And you get to this point where what we're really seeking out is some level of certainty and connection there. And you can find that in the song, or you can find that in certain items. And so, yes, we get a sense of certainty through grief, or sadness, or anger, or frustration. It makes me at least feel like I'm in Control of something when everything else feels like it is out of control. I could put on that song and I'm certain I can feel sad and I can pine for the past.

• 32:58Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And that's okay to hold on to for a bit. But if I'm clinging to it, then I'm clinging to a type of sadness. Yes, I have certainty there, but I don't have the the love and connection I'm actually seeking out through that device. Which brings me to my pithy answer, which is you can't let go if you can't hold on. And I think about my favorite David Foster Wallace quote from Infinite Jest is everything I've ever let go of has claw marks on it. Which is not letting go at all. It means that it was pried out of your hands in some way. And that's not a type of letting go, but that is illustrative of what we often do.

• 33:42Joshua Fields Millburn?

  We cling until we're unable to cling anymore. But if I can't hold on to anything at all, that's called Spartanism, by the way. It's a it's a mental disorder where I'm unable to hold on to things or relationships, careers, everything I always have to let go of. But the way I think about it is a more practical way is if you just put oil all over my hands and then I tried to pick up this. This coffee mug, it's probably just going to slip out of my hand. I could never let it go because I could never hold on to it in the first place. I I do have a hat box of my mom's, it's filled with photographs. It's really the only sentimental item that I have left of hers to my knowledge.

• 34:23Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And it is one item, but it contains a bunch of items, a bunch of old photographs in there. And I've already scanned all of these photographs, but they're still in there and I can look through them from time to time. But there's also a boundary there for me. I don't have 10 boxes of her photographs, I don't have 100 boxes of her things because that would water them down. And I would, it'd be hard to, I wouldn't be holding on, I'd be clinging. But the opposite of that would be I refuse to hold on to any sentimental item. Well, if I can't hold on, then I was never able to let go in the first place, just like my buttered up hands wouldn't allow me to hold on anything. You're not letting go if the thing can't even stay in your hand at all.

• 35:05Joshua Fields Millburn?

  That's almost the end of page one TK. We still have an entire switchboard of callers to talk to, but first, real quick for right here, right now, here's one thing, or maybe two things going on in the life of the minimalist. First, Professor Sean just told me this morning, our three free eBooks, Emotional Clutter, The Minimalist Rulebook, 16 Rules for Living with Less, and the newest one, very, very simple, 12 Tools for a Simpler Life. They're all free on our website, of course, but some of you have asked, actually, a lot of you asked, can we get it on Kindle? I'd like to be able to read this on my Kindle, and it's available as a Kindle eBook as well. I'll put links to those in the show notes, or you can find them over at Amazon as well. So if you want to download them for free on our website, you can do that, or if you want the Kindle version, I think it's just

• 35:46Joshua Fields Millburn?

  a few bucks over there on Amazon for very, very simple, Emotional Clutter, or The Minimalist Rulebook. Also, this is the other thing that's going on in life of the minimalist, we've completely transformed the Simple Newsletter this year. It's one of the great ways to communicate directly with people without any sort of middlemen. It's not entirely true, because if you have like a Gmail inbox, they'll put you in our Promotions tab, or whatever it is, and even though these things are emails that you signed up for, it's not a promotion necessarily, but I've been writing, I mean, I write every day, but I've been writing specifically for the newsletter every week, and writing a new essay. The most

• 36:28Joshua Fields Millburn?

  recent one was called Absurd Things, and there's one I'm working on right now about brand loyalty. I want to talk to you a bit about that. You might actually help me shape this one a little bit on page two, because we have a question about brands of jackets, and what brands do you own, and what brands do you enjoy, and I'm a bit brand agnostic, and so that's an essay I'm working on right now. So each week, I'm sort of thinking about the material possessions in a new way. I'm thinking about, being I'm writing about them in ways I've never written before, and that's in the Simple Newsletter. If you want to subscribe to that, it's over at theminimalists.com. Just enter your email address there at the top, and if you do subscribe, we're going to be announcing a tour very soon, as well

• 37:08Joshua Fields Millburn?

  as a special live retreat with the minimalist. And if you're on our email newsletter, you'll be the second to know. Our patrons will be the first to know, but if you want to know about that, sign up for the Simple Newsletter at theminimalists.com. All right, much more coming up, but first, here is a minimalist tip from one of our listeners.

• 37:29Speaker 04

  Hey guys, this is Whitney from Josh's favorite country, Texas. I am a Patreon subscriber. I'm calling in with a listener tip. And I'm sure everyone with children understands the frustration. I wish that I could go back in time and just waggle my finger in the person's face that thought it was a good idea to put toys with kids' meals. So unbelievably frustrating and wasteful. But there's just all these little tiny things that they end up with, even if you're really diligent about not letting them have these things. I don't believe in party favors at children's birthdays, but they always end up with them. There's prizes from the prize box at school and toys from their kids' meals when I let them have them. I always try to say, "No toy."

• 38:13Speaker 04

  But inevitably, those people who pack the bags just forget. You know, just lots of little tiny junk. And they are in love with it for a day or two, and then they forget about it. And so I have a little spot on the counter that I will put these things. I give them a few days, once they forget about it, and I see that they see it, and they walk past it, and they don't care. It's gone. For the longest time, I was either donating them or throwing them away. And then, you know, I had a thought, like, I hate wasting these things. These are all those little things that, you know, end up at the bottom of the toy box. So my husband's family is very, you know, it's a big family. They're very close. They love to celebrate each other and with each other. So every year, the kids do a big Easter egg hunt. And I started saving these things for the eggs, for the Easter eggs. You know, I just keep one gallon Ziploc bag, and I will put them in there, and keep it up high in my closet

• 38:56Speaker 04

  so the kids don't see it and try to open it. And then I just stuff the eggs with these reused things. But this year, my daughter asked Santa for a pinata for her birthday, because it's in early January. And I've decided to use all of these things. You know, they got all these little trinkets and stuff from Halloween, and I started saving them a couple of weeks ago. And you wouldn't believe the amount of stuff that I have in this bag. So I'm saving it all for her pinata. And, you know, I might add a little bag of bubble gum or something to supplement. But it just, it feels good to reuse these things, to not throw away this 50th pack of, you know, crayons that they got from wherever, and that kind of stuff. So hopefully, that's helpful to some people. You know, if you have the space to keep it, it feels like a creative way to reuse these things

• 39:40Speaker 04

  and then also get them out of your house.

• 39:43Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Oh Whitney, shout out to Texas by the way, my favorite international tour stops. I um, yeah, you're, thank you for your helpful and hilarious comment. That's, you're doing it just right. I will say this, when it comes to the freebies, I, I reject all freebies for myself now. And I, we did a whole episode about freebies. Put a link to that in the show notes, Savvy D, please. That's one of my favorite episodes because it's so countercultural. When someone offers you something for free, it's like, we're supposed to take it. And I understand why, but when there is functionally unlimited free samples, we get weighed down by it. However, I will say this, as a kid, if my mom would have always said, "Don't get the toy and the Happy Meal",

• 40:27Joshua Fields Millburn?

  or "Don't, don't get the little tchotchkes", yes, I did stop playing with them in a few days or a few weeks or whatever. But I got immense joy from the playing in the meantime. And the party favors? Those are, that's the most fun part of the party when I was a kid. I want the little kazoo, or I want, I want the cheap plastic things as a kid. And I, I hate to say that, uh, because I, I'm not for manufacturing really cheap goods that are gonna get thrown in the landfill tomorrow. But Whitney's handling it beautifully. Taking it, put it in a pinata so they have a second or third or fourth life? How amazing is that? But TK, I'm curious about our so-called freebies, like toys and free food and, and merch.

• 41:11Joshua Fields Millburn?

  When you go to some sort of retail store and they're, or a bank and they're handing you pins and coasters and all of these things. Why do we always accept those things without question?

• 41:21Speaker 03

  Well, imagine if someone walks up to you randomly and says, "Hey, here's a $10 bill." Apart from the suspicion you'd feel over, "No one's gonna really do that, so what's the catch?" When it comes to things, our guards are a little bit down, especially if it takes place in an environment where there's credibility, like a store is giving us free samples. We know that it has value. We know that at some point, they're gonna charge a price for that. And we won't be able to get it for free. So it almost feels like we're wasting money by saying no to it. And it's a psychological trick that they play because they know it's a very powerful one. But what I love about Whitney's solution here is that it beautifully illustrates how clutter can be transformed into value

• 42:01Speaker 03

  simply by changing the way you use it. Clutter isn't just about the thing, it's about the functionality. And one of the best ways to declutter is not merely to let go, but it's also to say, I will reconcile myself to this thing by using it in a way that's consistent with the story that I was telling myself when I bought it or allowed it to come in.

• 42:21Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Right, right. And it forces you to better understand the things you bring into your life. And maybe it allows you to let go of some of those things in advance. That's why I don't accept the freebies is I'm letting go of it now before even acquiring it. That way I don't have to burden myself with it later. However, with your kids, I think it's an especially useful exercise. We can talk to Whitney about that. We were talking to Dana earlier about her kids and going through the sentimental items. Freebies become a type of sentimental items, especially for kids as well. Like, I should hold on to this, or, yeah, that's the bank I used to bank at, so I'm going to keep the pin from the credit union. Okay, fine, but,

• 43:00Joshua Fields Millburn?

  nothing wrong with hold on to a pin. It's functional. It's great. I have a pin here. But if it's just sitting in a drawer with any of these toys, if it's just sitting there, now your kids are going to become burdened in subtle ways. And you're going to become burdened by this a little bit too, Whitney, because, let's face it, you're the one who has to help them deal with the stuff. Even if you're helping them deal with the stuff, each one of these things they bring into the house becomes an opportunity for learning for those kids. And so when I help Ella, my daughter, go through her things, and she's 12, and she still holds on to things that she doesn't play with anymore, helping her understand what's going to happen with that after you let it go. Maybe some other kid will get benefit from it. Maybe it's getting in the way and I'm opening up space to play more in my room.

• 43:45Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And understand what the benefits of letting go are, instead of just preaching to them that we shouldn't have any freebies, which obviously is not what Whitney's doing. Whitney has found a fun, she's found a fun playful solution to deal with all these tchotchkes that her kids constantly receive.

• 44:03Joshua Fields Millburn?

  All right, we got a lot more coming up. If you have a question for us or a comment, send a listener tip into [email protected], just like Whitney did, so we can feature your voice on the show. Up next, page two and page three, but I need to take a quick break to change my wardrobe. I got more jackets I need to try on, right? All right, so we'll be right back.

• 44:26Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Did you see that wardrobe change, TK? I've got one of my favorite coats here. We'll talk about that on page two. That's the first, what, 37% of episode 526. We'll see you on Patreon for the full two-hour maximal edition, which includes answers to a bunch more questions like, "How do I let go of excess houseplants, especially the struggling ones, when these living things bring me joy and it just feels wrong to throw them away?" Also, "How do I decide to buy something I want but don't need when the answer isn't a clear hell yes or hell no?" And of course, "What are the six brands of jackets that JFM personally

• 45:07Joshua Fields Millburn?

  wears?" Plus, a million more questions and Simple Living segments over on the Minimalist Private Podcast on Patreon. The link is in the description. When you subscribe, you can listen to our private episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Plus, you'll gain access to all of our podcast archives, all the way back to the very first episode. And that is our minimal episode for today. On behalf of Ryan Nicodemus, TK Coleman, Audio Bin, Spire Jeff, and Spire Dave, Jordan O'More, Tom Cat, Professor Sean, Savvy D, and the rest of our team, I'm Joshua Fields Milburn. If you leave here today with just one message, let it be this: Love people and use things, because the opposite

• 45:51Joshua Fields Millburn?

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