532 | Love Life

The Minimalists speak with Dr. Orion Taraban about how couples can navigate minimalism when only one partner wants to live that way, what's missing from your love life, a new idea to help kids let go, three do's and don'ts that can make or break your relationship, and much more. Discussed in this episode: How do I live a minimalist life when my spouse doesn't share those values? (5:30) What's one thing that's missing from your love life? (26:43) Right Here, Right Now: Join Joshua, T. K., and Ryan for an hour-long Zoom call. (44:16) Listener Tip: Use a "friendship bag" to help kids let go of toys. (45:30) 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'd be fine without it.

• 0:38Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, welcome to the minimalist podcast where we discuss what it means to live a meaningful life with less. I'm here in West Hollywood with my good friend TK Coleman. Hey, man, it's a beautiful day. Man, I have, it's the weather's changing, the season's changing. It is sneezing season for me. I, so I'll do my best till I got red eyes right now, but we're gonna make this work today. Because today we're joined by our returning champion, Dr. Orion Tara Vanis here, y'all. Dr. O.

• 1:11Speaker 02

  This is great, man. Thanks for having me back.

• 1:13Joshua Fields Millburn?

  It's good to have you back.

• 1:14Speaker 02

  I always love talking to you guys.

• 1:16Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Orion, you put a new book out and we'll talk about it. It's called Starry Night. It's a novel and boy, was I worried TK. Can you, can you imagine why I might've been worried here? A little concerned? I have no idea. A lot of people try to write fiction.

• 1:29Speaker 02

  It's hard.

• 1:30Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, I teach, I've been teaching writing class for 14 years now and my very first book was a novel and it is difficult. It's a different thing. I'm a fiction reader primarily. I don't read a whole lot of nonfiction, but also your last book, The Value of Others, was so good. When we had you on the show to talk about it, I was like, this guy's in his lane and now he's totally getting out of his lane and it's a book about Vincent Van Gogh and so I picked it up and I started reading it, right? I'm reading, it's called Starry Night. Here, I'll hold it up for the camera if y'all want to see it, but, and it's, it's a short book and I open it up and the first chapter is like super dense. It's very well-written, but it's so well-written, I'm like, oh, it's gonna be hard to read

• 2:14Joshua Fields Millburn?

  this whole book like this. The metaphors and similes, it's just, it was really dense and I kept reading, I realized, oh no, that's just a narrator voice. And then we moved to a different narrator and, and all of a sudden. I am just drawn into this thing. You, you wrote a book that is really, really good, Orion. And on page three, I have a whole list of sentences from the book that I want to go over with because you were able to incorporate philosophy in a way where it didn't feel heavy handed. I didn't feel like you were beating me over the head with profundity. There were these moments, though, of breath.

• 2:55Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And the, the writing is gorgeous. And I will just say that the, early on, it reminded me a bit of like the muscular writing of like Don DeLillo and The Body Artist is one of my favorite books. I, I saw little traces of that. And then, I don't know if you know Lionel Shriver, she wrote, she's written a bunch of books, but her writing is so muscular. And she has this book called The Motion of the Body Through Space. It's a masterpiece. And there were moments of that during Theo's chapter that I was reading. And then the epistolary sort of elements of the, um, the doctor and the way that it's written there reminded me a bit of, uh, you know, Jonathan Franzen, he wrote a book called Freedom. And throughout the book, there,

• 3:40Joshua Fields Millburn?

  one of the characters, it's all letters from the character. And they're very well-written letters, but it makes sense in the context of the book. And then later in the book, it's from Vincent van Gogh's perspective. And did you ever read, uh, Mark Z. Danielovsky's book, House of Leaves?

• 3:57Speaker 02

  Uh, yes. I haven't read it, but I know of it. I've picked it up and I thought, wow, this is something that I've never seen a book do before.

• 4:03Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, it's wholly unreadable, but it's amazing. It's an amazing work of art. And that's also worried me because the first thing I did is I flipped toward the end and I saw these pages that looked like,

• 4:13Speaker 02

  Uh oh, poetry.

• 4:14Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, I'm like, is this poetry? Or is it, what is he trying to do with this? But by the time you get there, it all makes sense. So we'll talk more about that. Uh, I'll just say, let me give you your flowers now. Congratulations. You made an out, you wrote an outstanding book.

• 4:31Speaker 02

  Thank you, Joshua. What a ringing endorsement.

• 4:33Joshua Fields Millburn?

  The writing is so gorgeous. We'll get into that. But you know, this is a, a listener-driven show, so I don't want to talk too About a bunch of things like how can couples navigate minimalism and only one partner wants to live that way. We got a question about that. Also, what's missing from your love life? And we have a new idea to help kids let go and much, much more. Also, on page three, we'll ask Dr. Tara Band to share three relationship do's and don'ts that can make or break your relationships. Let's start with our callers. If you have a question for our show, we'd love to hear from you. Join the program at 4062197839, or you can email a voice recording right from your phone to [email protected]. Let us know if you're a Patreon subscriber,

• 5:16Joshua Fields Millburn?

  we'll 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. Advertisements suck. Yes, indeed. Our first question today is from Ariana.

• 5:34Speaker 03

  Hello, guys. I am Ariana from Puerto Rico. Thanks a lot for the opportunity. I want to ask, how can I balance my minimalist lifestyle with my husband's lifestyle who is not a minimalist? I understand this is very important to avoid divorce. Keep the good work. Big fan here. Thanks a lot.

• 5:58Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Orion, how do you think about values and compatibility when it comes to relationships?

• 6:05Speaker 02

  I think that opposites tend to attract, but similarities tend to stay together. And that's why it's important to vet for shared values for a long-term relationship. Like, I'm not sure when this woman decided that minimalism was important to her. But if it was before she got married, that might have been something that she could have vetted prior to tying the knot. Of course, that doesn't help her so much now. So I assume that this is more of a recent Interest of hers. And I'm gonna resist the urge to say the hilarious thing that if minimalism means cutting things out of your life,

• 6:42Speaker 02

  she could do something very simply to bring her lifestyle in line with her values there.

• 6:50Speaker 02

  But I would say practically speaking, rather than try to directly persuade or convince your husband, why don't you try to inspire him by taking him to places that you feel resonate with the minimalist vibe. They're often very peaceful. They can often be very beautiful. And I think that if he can have that kind of emotional experience, that might be more directly impactful than trying to change his mind through nagging, or why don't you pick this up, or can we get rid of this? That feels like a bunch of chores that he might not be interested in doing. But if he can feel what you feel when you live that lifestyle, it might be easier to get him on board with your project.

• 7:34Joshua Fields Millburn?

  TK, she brings up a point here, like, or he brings up a point about her, her question is, you know what? It's about simplifying your own life, not simplifying someone else's life for them by trying to convince them, persuade them. Or worse, we often see people try to manipulate other people. Or they just steal their stuff and donate it to the local goodwill or something. That's called theft. I never recommend it. People get frustrated with us sometimes at our live events where we, they'll bring their husband in there like, can you tell him to please get rid of all of his excess stuff that's in the garage?

• 8:07Speaker 02

  Therapy, that happens in couples therapy too, where someone brings in their spouse, and it's basically like, just tell him usually that I'm right. I'm right, right? And it's like, whoa, so there's a dynamic here that probably needs to be addressed. So.

• 8:25Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Right. And so TK, if there is a moment where, because it, I suspect there are cases where, yes, there's someone is right and wrong here. But most of the time, we're talking about conflicting preferences. Is that fair?

• 8:38Speaker 04

  That's right. And in this case, we have no idea what it could be. I mean, is her husband a really messy guy that's just leaving stuff all over the house? And every time she says, can you help me out and pick up after yourself? He goes, yes, but he goes off and forgets? Or is he someone who whenever she talks about, oh, I love the minimalist podcast. It's great. He says, that bores me and rolls his eyes. I have no idea what it means to describe him as not a minimalist. I have no idea what it means for her to describe herself as a minimalist. I think where it can be helpful to set aside the labels for a moment is to ask yourself, what is that end towards which minimalism is the means? What is that for me? What is that for my husband? And how can we connect around that?

• 9:23Speaker 04

  Because my philosophy of minimalism is that we're minimalist here so that we can be maximalist there. Your age old question is, how might my life be more with less? So why do I simplify? I simplify because there's some area of my life I want to focus on and I want to experience radical abundance in that area. So I simplify my calendar because if I'm not busy, I get to spend a lot of time with friends, a lot of time doing things that I love. I simplify, you know, how much time I'm spending watching TV so that I can have more time to read, to think and to take walks. I simplify maybe the partying life so that I can have more time to invest in my career and experience financial freedom or financial abundance. So what is that for you? What is that for your husband?

• 10:06Speaker 04

  Because even if he's not a minimalist, he's got something that fires him up, that turns him on, that makes his life meaningful. And I'm a big fan of being a student of what fires people up before we start talking about the methods and the processes and the strategies and the isms they need to adopt in order to be better. What's his concept of what it means to be better? How can we connect over that and maybe generate some creative conversation and discussion around that that doesn't require him to be a practitioner of my ism?

• 10:31Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Orion, you mentioned a moment ago that when couples come in, it's often to try to change the other person. Usually that's from a relatively new realization. Like, I just saw the minimalist podcast started two months ago and now all of a sudden I'm becoming a minimalist. I haven't been a minimalist for 35 years, but now I'm going to be. And so it took you 35 years to sort of get to that realization. It might take your husband more than 35 seconds to to get on board. When you're dealing with, as you're dealing with clients, not publicly, but privately, and you have someone who is, I guess, struggling to show the benefits of their, whatever they're doing to someone else. How does that come across?

• 11:16Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Do people, do they get overwhelmed? Do they get upset with with their partner? If they're unable to show them the benefits of what they're doing?

• 11:27Speaker 02

  They certainly can. I don't think that's very effective or productive, but people do do those things.

• 11:32Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Right.

• 11:32Speaker 02

  I think it's really important in general to focus on what's within your domain of control, and that's generally not your partner. I mean, think about how hard it is to change your own habits. And those are things you actually have control over. It's almost impossible to change somebody else's habits. It takes a lot more work. I think that the best way to show people the benefits of your lifestyle is through modeling. On some level, you might appreciate this, TK. It's like if you have to tell somebody that you're a Christian, you failed. Like, they should be able to know that from your behavior and the way that they treat you. So if you have to use your words to convince your partner that your lifestyle is good, your lifestyle isn't very persuasive yet.

• 12:16Speaker 02

  They should be able to see how you are and how you're living within those decisions and say, I want what this person is having. They should get curious. You look happier these days. You look healthier these days. What's going on with you? And I think that's generally a better strategy than trying to make a logical, rational argument in defense of your ism.

• 12:38Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Now, TK, we often, but as soon as we find a new idea that makes a whole lot of sense to us, oh, it all sort of clicks for us. We start to proselytize almost immediately, don't we?

• 12:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, and I'm really sympathetic towards that because, you know, it's like sharing a good restaurant or a good book or a good movie. What do you want to do? It's communal. We're communal beings.

• 12:58Joshua Fields Millburn?

  It feels selfish to not share it.

• 13:00Speaker 04

  It feels selfish to not share it. Did something for me. It changed my life and you want to tell your buddies? And it's not until your buddies give you that feedback that says, hey, I appreciate your excitement, but I've heard about this movie for the last time. I don't want to convert to your religion or whatever it may be. And then you got to learn to respectfully back it up a little bit. But to Dr. O's point about modeling your belief, one of the things I believe is that when you model your beliefs successfully, people won't necessarily latch on to your ism, but they'll try to steal something from your game. If you're healthy, I may not want to follow your diet, but I do want to know, man, what are you doing? Okay, if I take away nothing else from the conversation, I might take away,

• 13:41Speaker 04

  maybe I should be a little more focused and disciplined about what it is I want to eat. Maybe I should get after it with the exercises that I want to do. Because when I see him commit to his, it makes me more motivated to commit to mine. And so we can still inspire people as long as we don't latch on to the expectation that inspiration must equal emulation. They've got to want to be me. And, and I think if we start with, hey, you need to clean your life up. Hey, I need you to be more minimalist. We're just going to create an antagonistic environment. But when we start with the other person and we say things like, hey, how are you feeling about life right now? Is there anything that you feel like you want to be doing better? Is there anything that you feel like you want to be experiencing more of?

• 14:26Speaker 04

  Is there anything you're trying to figure out right now?

• 14:28Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 14:29Speaker 04

  And then get on board with trying to support that to feed into the energy of that, using the tools that you have without requiring them to form any theoretical beliefs about those tools.

• 14:39Joshua Fields Millburn?

  This is why TK is so good with, with this stuff because he gets really curious in these situations. And genuinely curious. It's not a backhanded sort of, wouldn't your life be better if you got rid of some of your stuff TK? Well, I asked it as a question, so it means I'm curious. Most questions have this sort of judgmental undercurrent.

• 15:00Speaker 04

  Prescriptions with a question mark.

• 15:01Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, that's exactly.

• 15:03Speaker 02

  That's a question that would be struck down in court. They'd say that's a leading question. You know, that's not a good faith line of interrogation.

• 15:10Joshua Fields Millburn?

  But part of the problem here is it often feels like you're going to court here. Even, and I feel like I'm being interrogated by a prosecutor just because someone found minimalism in my house three weeks ago.

• 15:22Speaker 02

  Let me say something else on this issue. I think that there are differences between preferences and deal breakers. Everybody has both and it's your right to have as many. Preferences and deal breakers as you'd like. A deal breaker is something that if it never changes, would all by itself corrode your willingness to remain in the relationship. And you have to be really honest about what that is.

• 15:45Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Can you give an example?

• 15:46Speaker 02

  Alcoholism. Like you can take out your telescope and see where that leads. It leads to destruction. It leads to selfishness. It leads to sickness and death. You don't have to walk the path all the way to the end if you can see that it's a dead end. So you could say, hey, I'm not going to try to change you, but you're going to do what you want, but I'm also going to do what I want. And I'm going to ask you to choose, would you rather have this relationship? Or would you rather have your relationship with alcohol?

• 16:16Joshua Fields Millburn?

  But ultimatums rarely work, right?

• 16:19Speaker 02

  Sometimes they work in stages.

• 16:24Joshua Fields Millburn?

  But doesn't that breed resentment?

• 16:26Speaker 02

  It can. I mean, punishment often does, but punishment can also save people's lives. I mean, they call it the Department of Corrections, right? Now, whether or not that's actually valid for everybody. Punishment is, if it's given in the right spirit and it's received in the right spirit, can save people's marriages, can save people's lives to stop them from doing something that would destroy them and those around them, for sure.

• 16:48Joshua Fields Millburn?

  So are you telling Ariana is to tell her husband, you have a choice to make? You're getting rid of your stuff or you're getting rid of me?

• 16:54Speaker 02

  Well, that's actually not what I'm saying because I doubt that it would come to that. So if it's not something that's going to corrode your relationship all by yourself and you're willing to leave, that's a preference. And you have a preference for minimalism. Your husband has a preference for not minimalism, whatever we want to call that.

• 17:10Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Sure.

• 17:11Speaker 02

  It's like this is part of the work and labor of love is you have to say, why does this annoy me so much? Because if another woman was in her place, she might not be bothered.

• 17:24Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Right.

• 17:25Speaker 02

  To my mind, that means that it's not objectively wrong or bad what the husband might be doing. And the work of love is to accept the other person for who he or she is. I mean, no one goes into a relationship thinking, gee whiz, I sure hope this other person changed me, changes me into someone that they want me to be. But so often, people are trying to change their spouses into who they want their spouse to be.

• 17:46Joshua Fields Millburn?

  That's right.

• 17:47Speaker 02

  It doesn't work both ways. And so that's part of the work is to go inward and say, why does this annoy me so much?

• 17:54Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Right.

• 17:55Speaker 02

  And that might be more beneficial than trying to change this other person's mind. And one last thing I'll say here is I think even underneath the preference issue might be an attraction issue.

• 18:07Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Hmm.

• 18:08Speaker 02

  I think that if we're talking about the fact that he's not putting his socks in the hamper, I know she didn't say that, but we don't know what the extent of the issue is. It's not really about the socks. You know, when people are very attracted to each other, when they're very in love with each other, they'll see the socks and they'll think it as a charming idiosyncratic quirk. Oh, my forgetful little husband, let me just put those where they belong, you know? So, but when the attraction fades and the love dies, it's like this idiot. I told him 14 times about it, I can't take it anymore. So it's not really about the socks. It might not actually be about the minimalism. It might be about reconnecting on an emotional level so that the two of you kind of remember

• 18:53Speaker 02

  why you got together in the first place.

• 18:55Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, but sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. And sometimes the socks are just socks and they're in the way. And it wouldn't be a problem if TK has socks in the room of his bedroom, because I don't live at TK's house. So I don't care whether or not he's a minimalist. But if TK is living with me and we're cohabitating, I have a strong preference. You might even say I have a value. And that's the distinction you're making there between preferences and values, that I, it wouldn't work. I couldn't live with a hoarder personally.

• 19:22Speaker 02

  I couldn't live with a messy woman. And I tried, and that was a deal breaker for me. But that was something that I knew very early on in the relationship.

• 19:30Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, and I think I think that's important to understand. Is this the cost of admission for being in this relationship? And for me, that happens. My wife, thankfully, is relatively minimalist. And my daughter, well, she's 12. And so she gets to have her preferences within reason. But ultimately, what we say goes. And I will say that their preferences are different from mine. I'm a bit more utilitarian, a bit more austere. And if I were just living by myself without them, I would have fewer things. But the cost of admission to being in a really outstanding relationship, like a truly top 1% of 1% relationship,

• 20:13Joshua Fields Millburn?

  is I recognize that I have to also honor their preferences. My wife's preference specifically. I will say this, though. My wife's the happiest person I know. And it's because she has very few preferences. She has preferences, and she's happy to state them. But she doesn't have preferences and opinions and viewpoints about everything. Most things, it's like, oh, oh, well, okay. It's water off a duck's back. Or she doesn't care enough about most things to get upset, frustrated, disappointed. And as a result, she's the happiest person I know. And so part of that has to do with expectations. I just wrote something for the simple newsletter about the difference between expectations and standards. I do this weekly newsletter, similar to what you do.

• 20:58Joshua Fields Millburn?

  You do a weekly newsletter, and I just send out something I've been thinking about. And I've been thinking about this for years. Expectations versus standards. And where I came up with this, ultimately, expectations are a type of hope. I hope this will happen in the future, right? And hope is sort of this, it's just an expectation dressed in a tuxedo in a way. It's it's kind of like, being hopeful, I'm totally fine with that. But always hoping that something is going to change is a recipe for disappointment. A standard is different. A standard is a bodyguard for your well being. An expectation might be, I expect to have six pack abs. Well, not every time you go to the gym, that's going to be a failure.

• 21:40Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Failure because I didn't leave with six pack abs. I failed again. But if your standard is, yeah, I'm going to exercise for an hour a day, every day. The results will eventually take care of themselves. And so I like to make that distinction, having fewer expectations or preferences here, but also having high standards yourself. It does become more complicated when you live in a house with someone who might be. They may not be considerate of your preferences mainly because they may not even know what your preferences are, or you're expressing them in a way, as TK, you illustrated earlier. You might be expressing your preferences in a way that become antagonistic, or it's a real turn off to the other person in the house.

• 22:21Speaker 04

  That's exactly right. I'm gonna leave the caller here with three questions to ask. And this is for anybody, if you feel like you're dealing with an incompatibility at the level of your isms, your behaviors, habits, and so on. The first is, can they respect my devotion even when they do not share it? If I have a weekly AA meeting that I go to, my wife doesn't have to go with me. She doesn't have to read the book. She doesn't even have to find it interesting. What she has to do, however, is not give me a hard time when I go. If I'm going to the AA meeting, she can't be like, you're going to that stupid meeting again? That's a lack of support. She doesn't have to have the devotion,

• 23:03Speaker 04

  but there needs to be room for the support. So can your spouse support you, affirm you, validate your interests, even if they themselves don't want to sign up for the newsletter, the meetings, and so on? The second is, can I carve out spaces where I can experience the benefits of being how I am and believing what I believe? So for instance, I love horror movies. My wife doesn't like them. She can't even have them on when she's around. She won't be able to sleep at night. It's that bad. That's okay. Me and my buddy Jerick, when we get together, we go watch the horror movies. I have plenty of time and space in my life to watch horror movies without infringing on my wife or forcing her to watch it too. And she knows that I do this. She doesn't give me a hard time. She just doesn't want to be a part of it.

• 23:45Speaker 04

  There are many things that are like that in life where you or like when we had actual space and we didn't live in a 400 square feet apartment, I had an office in that space. And that was the place where it's totally TK's aesthetic. There aren't going to be any Michael Jordan posters in our bedroom, right? But this is the space where there might be a Michael Jordan poster. Can we have, can we have like compromises with respect to how we use the space where spaces reflect you, spaces reflect the other? The, the third thing is, am I willing to tolerate and validate those aspects of their lifestyle that are not necessarily mine? So if you're a minimalist and you only have

• 24:26Speaker 04

  three pairs of shoes or one pair of shoes, you got like only two shirts and two jeans, that's cool. But if he wants to have 10 pairs of jeans and 10, 10 t-shirts, are you okay with that? If he wants to have 50 books, you know, you're married to me, are you okay with that? Can you allow some space for him to be how he wants to be in the same way you want him to allow some space for you to be who you want to be? If you can give affirmative questions, answers to all of those, then you've got yourself a good situation in spite of their differences. If you can't give affirmative answers to all of those, then you've got a deeper problem that needs to be tended to. It's more than just a difference in Islam. It's a difference in respect.

• 25:05Joshua Fields Millburn?

  The only thing I'll add to that is tolerance becomes a relatively weak virtue over time. If you're just tolerating the socks or tolerating he has too many shoes, that's a great first step. But I, I find that understanding someone also goes beyond that and there's an acceptance, there's a respect, and ultimately there can even be appreciation. I could live with a maximalist, I couldn't live with a hoarder. And I make that distinction. Maximalist is still super intentional, right? They might own a lot of things, but they're intentional with the things that they own. And it may not be my preference, but I can respect, I can even appreciate the artistic abundance of maximalism. It's really difficult to get, to get to an appreciation of something that doesn't align with your preferences. But

• 25:50Joshua Fields Millburn?

  when you love the person, that is totally possible. Ariana, I would love to, if you're For you to download a copy of the minimalist's values worksheet because that's what kind of what we're talking about here today. Separating your preferences from what your values are, better understanding your values. Because I might tell you, I might ask you a question and say, what are your values? And you can give me some lip service answers. Well, I value my health and I value my relationships and I value my community. And, and those things are true abstractly, right? But what do you really value? What do you value behind this? Are some of these things lip service values? How are you spending the 24 hours that you have in a day? You show me your calendar, I'll show you your real values. So, download our values worksheet. It is free over at theminimalists.com/v.

• 26:35Joshua Fields Millburn?

  There is also an essay there about how to better understand your values. Orion, before we get back to our callers, let's explore the question of the week this week. The question is, what's one thing that's missing from your love life? What's one thing that's missing from your love life? Now, before we give our pithy answers here, let's hear how some of our patrons answered this question. David said, what's missing from his love life? I want more of a commitment. I sometimes feel like the person I'm dating isn't serious enough. We've only been dating for a few months, but I know I want more and I don't want to waste my time if she's not the one.

• 27:20Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Orion, this kind of reminds me of the arrival fallacy I wrote down here. It's the mistaken belief that lasting happiness, fulfillment, or completeness will finally arrive once a particular milestone or destination is reached. In psychology, this is often called conditional happiness or destination addiction. Orion, what's the problem with this line of thinking?

• 27:45Speaker 02

  The arrival fallacy, or what this caller was talking about?

• 27:48Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I think it's both, right? Or are you disagreeing that there is not an arrival fallacy?

• 27:52Speaker 02

  Oh, there absolutely is. I mean, the way I think about it is achievements and goals are like mountains, and you spend most of your time climbing the mountain. When you actually summit it, yeah, there's a feeling of satisfaction. You take in the beautiful vista. You get to pat yourself on the back and check something off. But the top of a mountain is not a very hospitable place to be. It's generally very exposed and windy and cold. And most people only spend a few minutes up there before they have to come down. And they might have to think about the next mountain that they have to climb. And there's always more mountains out there than we could possibly climb. We're not going to be able to get to them all, which could be part of what makes our decisions have meaning.

• 28:33Speaker 02

  We have to choose what we climb in our limited amount of time and energy. So to that end, I do think that it's important to choose mountains. If we take that to kind of its logical extreme, we might think that a good, meaningful life is the mountain that you can climb for the longest period of time without arriving, in the sense that you are constantly engaged in the journey and the process of becoming and arriving. And if that mountain is the highest mountain that you can conceive of, you might actually end up living a life of cultivated virtue

• 29:16Speaker 02

  or goodness or meaning, and that might be as good as it gets.

• 29:20Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah. TK, we're talking to David here. Can you think of a time that you thought, you know what, I'll finally be satisfied as soon as blank happens? Only to discover that maybe you didn't create lasting happiness in your life?

• 29:35Speaker 02

  Has that ever happened to you, really?

• 29:38Speaker 04

  It's literally happened every time I've pursued satisfaction. Literally. Knowledge, love, friendship, opportunity, literally every single time. And what I like about what Dr. O is saying is that... There's nothing wrong with needing to repeat satisfactions or with arrivals not giving you some like final state of satisfaction, as long as you adjust your expectations accordingly. I think I'm understanding you. You correct me if I'm wrong. But like, when I take a shower, it's not going to be the final shower where I'm going to reach some state of ultimate cleanliness and will never have to take a shower again.

• 30:16Joshua Fields Millburn?

  That sounds like a horror film you would watch.

• 30:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, the final shower. The final, oh gosh. That is scary. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Mother, is that you?

• 30:26Speaker 04

  Final shower. Anyway, oh my gosh, I go so many directions. But, you know, I'm okay with the fact that I gotta show up again. When I eat a meal today, I'm gonna want another one, probably four or five hours later, or at least the next day. And that's okay, as long as I'm not going into that meal thinking, once I eat this sandwich, I will never want anything again. Like, no, this is going to satisfy me, but I am also constituted in such a way that I am process and I will want something else. And that's okay. Like, I'll keep climbing new mountains because that's part of the joy. It's sort of like the distinction between finite and infinite games, where the purpose of a finite game is to win, to bring the game to completion so that it's over.

• 31:10Speaker 04

  But the purpose of an infinite game is the perpetuation of play. And so it's like what Alan Watts said about music, where the goal isn't to finish the song, it's to dance to the song, it's to be present in the music. And then once that one's over, start up a new one. That's okay. Oh TK, don't you wonder, how many songs do you need to listen to TK? To realize there is no one song that's gonna bring you ultimate satisfaction? Forget that, man. Who's looking for ultimate satisfaction? I'm looking to be right here, in the moment, dancing to that beat, and then we'll put a new one on after that's over. That's okay. I think that's okay.

• 31:40Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Orion, it seems to me that, yeah, we are often trying to rush to the end of the song or rush to the, to the mountaintop. And then we get there and it's like, oh, this didn't, this didn't fulfill me in a way. We had Dr. Arthur Brooks on the show and he said The Rolling Stones were wrong. They said, I can't get no satisfaction. It's like, no, you can get satisfaction. He said they should have sang, I can't keep no satisfaction. Because, yeah, you'll eat the meal, but you'll be hungry again. You'll dance to the music and you'll be worn out, but eventually you'll want to hear another song. And I think that applies to David here. It's also pretty abstract. He's saying like, hey, you know what? I want more of a commitment. What does that even mean, right?

• 32:23Joshua Fields Millburn?

  We often think we want a commitment, but what does, what does that mean? Are you looking for? Let it go, Dave.

• 32:30Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Sorry.

• 32:33Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Do we want, that's the Catholic coming out in TK.

• 32:37Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And he even says, like, we've only been dating for a few months here, but I think there's like this vision we have, like, this is great. I need to hold on to it no matter what.

• 32:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, I would say that if you were fortunate enough to meet your one, which is a concept that I personally don't subscribe to, then you're in the place that you want to be already.

• 33:02Speaker 02

  So what's the hurry? I think that the desire for commitment can often be something that comes out of insecurity in the sense that if I don't lock this person down

• 33:18Speaker 02

  now, that somebody else is going to come along and take this person's interest, that this is the best thing that I've been able to get so far. And so I want to put rules and structures around it so that I can keep it. But generally, what keeps a person around is this free and spontaneous desire to be around that person.

• 33:41Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes.

• 33:41Speaker 02

  And so it's like, if you love something, set it free, right? And if it loves you, it will return. You don't have to worry about it. Like, love always returns. It always brings people back. So I also think that if you're talking about the one, like a lifetime commitment, what's a few months? Like, what is the hurry? Like, the mountaintop isn't going anywhere. When you talk about how disappointing arriving can be, I think that that's a good thing. And I think that people need to have the right to that experience.

• 34:21Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes.

• 34:22Speaker 02

  As a coach and a consultant, as a therapist, sometimes I say that my job is to facilitate your disappointment. My job is to help you get what you want so that you know it's not actually going to give you the thing that you hope it's going to give you. So there's one less place that you need to look for it. And that's been part of my journey is.

• 34:45Speaker 02

  Getting what I wanted helped me to let go of the desire for those things. It's very easy to listen to rich people say that money isn't everything.

• 34:53Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Right.

• 34:53Speaker 02

  It's very easy to listen to these beautiful starlets say, you know, attraction is only skin deep. It's like, that's very nice. That's lovely to hear. They're not wrong, but it might be easier for the average person to have a deep, embodied experience of that disappointment so that they don't have to chase after the beauty or the money anymore. But until that happens, I'm afraid that those are too delicious of carrots for most people to resist.

• 35:23Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Hmm. Let's do one more from Kelly here. Kelly said, you know what's missing from my love life? Physical touch and time together due to the physical distance in my relationship. Orion, this brings me to my pithy answer I have here. We do these minimal maxims. And what did I have here? I have it written down somewhere. Oh yeah, distance creates the necessary space for desire. I think we think if we're going to be with someone, we'll continue to desire them more and more and more. But it's like eating three desserts. You don't desire the fourth one. You need some distance between desserts. And the thing that works so well for my relationship is Bex and I don't spend a whole lot of time together.

• 36:06Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And as a result, it's the best relationship I've ever been in. But if we were together every day, all the time, especially as an introvert, I would feel discontented by that. But I also understand Kelly's tug here. She's kind of like, you know what? I want to spend more time. I want more physical touch. I want more of the things that are important to me. But maybe you could talk a bit about how distance can be a good thing for a relationship. What can you tell our listeners about the relationship between distance and desire?

• 36:40Speaker 02

  Well, I would first say that that's probably a good problem to have. Like the problem that you would like to touch your partner more and spend more time with him is probably better than I wish that he would leave me alone and keep his hands off me.

• 36:52Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Smother me.

• 36:54Speaker 02

  So what you just described is basically the law of marginal utility. But you've applied it to like the emotional dimension of relationships, which is fascinating. I mean, I love that, which is maybe the 10th day in a row isn't quite as loving and satisfying as the ninth, et cetera. So maybe just like food or just like sleep, time together in emotional connection, it reaches a point of satiety past which it becomes either uncomfortable or even revolting. Right?

• 37:26Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, there are times for me, TK, where I know that like, oh, I just have one more bite, but the relationship can be that way, too, where it's like, I'll just have one more bite of the relationship. And what happens is there's like a bit of a bell curve there. The marginal utility wanes pretty quickly. I've heard that the best, it's best to eat just two bites of a dessert because you'll really enjoy that first one, you'll still really enjoy the second one, but then it sort of falls off with the abruptness of a coastal shelf after there, the delight. Although I can eat two pieces of cheesecake and then start the third and be like, you know what, one more bites, but that's what we do in relationships. Let's just spend a little bit more time together.

• 38:08Joshua Fields Millburn?

  So I have to force myself into the distance because in the moment, it's, there's a little bit of pain there. It's like, oh, you know what, I want, I want another hour here, but at some point, it just, it does become dissatisfying.

• 38:22Speaker 02

  I think it's always better to leave them wanting more.

• 38:24Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, leave myself wanting more.

• 38:26Speaker 02

  And to leave them wanting more, too, as opposed to when is this person going to leave, you know? Fish and house guests get old after three days, as it were. So you're absolutely correct. We can think of desire like a fire and fire needs several elements in order to combust. And one of them is air. It's like space. And I think that physical desire between people requires space in order to ignite. And we can go even further that. When it comes to romantic passion, we know that obstacles and definitely distance that must be surmounted inflames passionate love. It's obstacles of all sorts. Like, it's not a coincidence that Romeo and Juliet's

• 39:11Speaker 02

  parents hated each other and that Juliet had no interest in the nice Paris boy that her parents were trying to set her up with, right? So if love conquers all, it needs things to conquer. Without that, it actually becomes very scary. Like, one of the scariest things for most people is meeting a person who's healthy and ready to make a lifelong commitment, because now it's the rest of your life. And it's like, oh, wow, this is serious. Okay. But maybe if we put some obstacles in the way, then we can enjoy the process and think, ah, if only we lived closer.

• 39:51Speaker 02

  If only our parents understood. If only your job didn't take you away so often. If only you weren't married to somebody else. I mean, that happens every day.

• 40:02Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 40:02Speaker 02

  And that actually unconsciously and unintentionally inflames romantic passion. I'm not saying that you should do these things. I'm just being descriptive, not prescriptive.

• 40:13Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah. How about you, listeners? What's one thing that's missing from your love life? Let us know your thoughts in the Patreon community chat. All right, TK, dust off your minimal maxim here. Listeners, you can find this episode's maxims in the show notes over at theminimalists.com and every minimal maxim ever at minimalmaxims.com. We'll also deliver our weekly show notes directly to your inbox every Monday. If you sign up for our free email newsletter, it's the simple newsletter over at theminimalists.com. We'll never send you spam or junk or advertisements, but we will start your week off with a dose of simplicity. All right, give me something pithy, TK. What's one thing that's missing from your love life? And be careful, Michelle's listening to this.

• 40:53Speaker 04

  Hey, baby, how you doing? I love you. Love isn't scarce availability is. You know, for me, I think the only thing that's ever missing is TK. Sometimes I'm too into myself. I'm too in my own head. Sometimes I'm not availability to the vulnerability. Sometimes I'm not availability to the demands that love makes on me. Sometimes I'm not available to my own need to be honest, my need to be real, my need to be firm, my need to be soft. Sometimes I'm just not available in terms of my time, in terms of my energy, in terms of my thoughts. And so whenever it feels like love is missing, the question I always go to is, where am I failing to show up? For Michelle or for myself?

• 41:37Speaker 04

  And that's distinct from like, oh, no matter what's missing, it's always my fault. There's no spirit of blame here. But, but even when something is missing and it's not my fault, where am I failing to show up in the form of self-advocacy? Where am I failing to show up in the honest recognition of what I need and the clear articulation of that?

• 41:57Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, I, I think about, Orion, I, I think about what he's talking about here with being available. Sometimes you may not be available to someone else's expectations too. I think quite often in relationships, someone expects something. It often goes unsaid, but there are hints, there are clues that they might be expecting, or maybe you just don't know what they expect at all. And yeah, I'm not available to their expectation because I don't even know what their expectations are. Can you talk a bit about the, the role of expectations and how they, they often ruin a relationship?

• 42:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, most expectations we could call covert contracts. That's a concept from Dr. Robert Glover. No more Mr. Nice Guy. A covert contract is basically when I forge your signature on a contract you haven't even read. Like it's not enforceable whatsoever. I haven't discussed this with you, but there are failure conditions that your behavior can bring about that you're not even aware of. And that can trigger what I call inappropriate disappointment. Now, some disappointment is legitimate. I mean, think about the word disappointment. But for disappointment to be legitimate, there has to be an appointment to begin with. An appointment is something that is explicitly discussed and mutually agreed upon.

• 43:16Speaker 02

  We made an appointment to do this recording today at this time. If for whatever reason I didn't show up, you might be legitimately disappointed by my failure to do so. But if I just showed up without discussing that with you and expecting that the recording studio would be ready to receive me and you'd be overjoyed by my spontaneous arrival, I think that-

• 43:42Speaker 02

  I think I would have another thing coming, you know? I'm sure you wouldn't be unhappy to see me.

• 43:47Joshua Fields Millburn?

  We like you a lot. You just might be on the couch, hanging out, watching the podcast.

• 43:50Speaker 02

  Exactly. And it would be my fault if I were disappointed by that outcome. The, because the conditions that brought that about resided entirely within myself and not in the space in our relationship.

• 44:09Joshua Fields Millburn?

  All right, y'all, that's almost the end of page one. We still have an entire switchboard of callers to talk to. So many good questions for you, OT. But first, here's a right here, right now segment. One thing that's going on in the life of the minimalist. Mark your calendar. Join me and TK and Ryan Nicodemus for an hour long Zoom call. Our next FAMs, the Friday afternoon minimalist Zoom. We do this the first Friday of each month. So the next one is next Friday, April 3rd, and it's open to everyone this time. Usually we just do it for like the $10 patrons and above, but we're opening up to anyone, even if you have a free Patreon account this one month. You can hop on a Zoom call with me and TK and Nicodemus and we have a lot of fun on these calls. Wouldn't you say so, TK?

• 44:51Speaker 04

  Absolutely, man. It's the best thing. We always get Nicodemus on the line and then just being able to ask questions and have conversation as a community. We don't usually get to do that. When we're answering questions here, it's just us. We don't get to see the expression of the questioner and we don't get to hear the stories from other people weighing in real time. So there's something beautiful about that interaction.

• 45:12Joshua Fields Millburn?

  You can find the details of that at theminimalists.com/zoom. And even if you have a free Patreon account, we'll, we'll let you into that call on April 3rd. We do it at, I think it's noon Pacific. That's 3:00 PM Eastern. Does that sound right, Professor Jean? 3:00 PM? Yeah.

• 45:28Speaker 04

  He is right. That's right.

• 45:30Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Beautiful. Much more coming up, but first here is a minimalist tip from one of our listeners.

• 45:37Speaker 05

  Hi, my name is Whitney. I'm from Indianapolis, Indiana and am a Patreon subscriber. I wanted to offer a listener tip on collaborating versus coercion with small children and getting rid of toys. This was an incredibly useful tip that we tried with my daughter. We called it the friendship bag. What I would do, this particular child struggled to let go of toys. So toys that she was not okay with giving to big corporations, I would put into one single trash bag,

• 46:22Speaker 05

  preferably black, so she couldn't look in and realize she wanted that toy back. What we would then do is take a toy from the friendship bag when we would go out to coffee shops, playgrounds, or when we would go with friends, or go to visit friends. We would then ask the parent and the child if they were okay with accepting or wanting a new toy. We would then talk about consent and being okay if someone said no. This practice generosity and encouraged her to take the step that we often as adults take when we offer things to friends or family.

• 47:08Speaker 05

  This has encouraged a high level of generosity in my child and she often looks forward to giving things to people when we go and see them instead of expecting things in return. Hope that helps.

• 47:20Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Bravo, Whitney. You know, this reminds me of like the intentional, considerate, just well-considered version of this thing that went viral recently. I saw someone, this couple, every time they go to a friend's house, they declutter their things by leaving it at their friends' houses or at different people's houses. And it's funny, they'll show up three, four, six months later, the thing is still there and no one even notices. So it's like, I've got this little- Weird gold pony statue that I don't want anymore. I'll just go put it on their mantle. And just people very rarely recognize because we're so steeped in this idea of consumerism and more, more, more, more. Eventually, I'll be happy as soon as I get more. And then we end up with a house full of 300,000 items and no one notices when someone brings over

• 48:05Joshua Fields Millburn?

  half a dozen things and stores it in their home. It's like reverse shoplifting in a way. All right, a lot more coming up. If you have a listener tip or insight about this episode, just like Whitney did, you can send a voice memo to [email protected]. We'd love to feature your voice on the show. Up next, page two and page three. But first, let's take a quick pandiculation break. We'll be right back.

• 48:33Joshua Fields Millburn?

  All right, y'all, we'll see you on Patreon for the full two hour, two and a half hour maximal edition of episode 532 with Dr. Orion Taraban, which includes answers to a bunch more questions like, how do I let go of my wedding ring? That one got a little juicy. I didn't expect that one. How do I let go of my wedding ring? What's the best way to determine whether it's time to leave a relationship? And how do we distinguish between healthy discomfort that helps a relationship grow and pain that signals something is wrong? 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

• 49:14Joshua Fields Millburn?

  can listen to our private podcast episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Plus, you'll gain access to all of our archives, all the way back to 2015. It's a lot more of less for you to listen to. Shout out to Dr. Orion Taraban for joining us today. Check out his new book. It is called Starry Night, and it is so beautifully written. We'll also put a link to his YouTube channel and newsletter in the show notes. And that is our minimal episode for today. On behalf of Ryan Nicodemus, TK Coleman, Audio Ben, Spire Jeff and Dave, Tom Cat, Professor Sean, Savvy D, and the rest of our team, I'm Joshua

• 49:52Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Fields-Milburn. If you leave here with just one message, let it be this. Love people and use things, because the opposite never works. Thanks for listening, y'all. We'll see you next time. Peace.

• 50:08Speaker 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.