515 | Holiday Shopping Season

The Minimalists talk about celebrating the holidays without consumerism, our craziest Black Friday stories, the willingness to walk away from anything, six often-overlooked spaces in your home to declutter right now, and much more. Discussed in this episode: How does a minimalist enjoy the holidays without falling into the trap of consumerism? (3:41) What's your craziest Black Friday story? (14:51) Right Here, Right Now: Sunday Symposium and the Gift of Less. (40:58) Listener Tip: The willingness to walk away. (43:39) 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 Recorded at Earthing Studios http://earthing.com/simple.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:20Speaker 00

  Every little thing you think that you need. Every little thing you think that you need. Every little thing that's just feeding your greed. Oh, I bet that you'll be fine without it.

• 0:39Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes. Hello, simpletons. Welcome to the Minimalist Podcast, where we discuss what it means to live a meaningful life with less. My name is Joshua Fields Milburn, and we're recording this episode here at Earthing Studios in beautiful West Hollywood, California. Everyone's favorite holiday is this week. It's Black Friday, y'all. You know, it's the day we get to be thankful for all the money we're saving on things we don't even need to buy in the first place. Coincidentally, my very beautiful black co-host is not here for Black Friday. He's actually waiting in line right now at the Bed Bath & Beyond. He's gonna save 30% on a vacuum that he's buying for his wife for Christmas.

• 1:23Joshua Fields Millburn?

  No, TK isn't here. He's actually, um, he's, uh, flying out to Nashville today, and he's, uh, gonna be on Ken Coleman's show. He's doing the whole Ramsey circuit, uh, John Deloney, George Camel, and so he's not with us here today. But don't worry, we have a beautiful studio full of beautiful people here. Savvy D is here, Professor Sean is here. I've given them microphones and stacks of paper towels because we're here to clean up your mess today, your Black Friday mess. Also, Tom Cat is here. She's been editing some episodes for us as well. I think most recently, did you do the Guy Finley episode? Yeah, it was so, so good. By the way, nice work on that episode. I love the way that that turned out. And, uh, yeah, Guy Finley was such a beautiful addition to the show.

• 2:07Joshua Fields Millburn?

  TK recommended him, and I was a little- Skeptical at first because I had not heard of him and TK's like, he's one of my five favorite living philosophers. And it goes to show you that even a blind squirrel can find a nut every once in a while. Good job TK. I'm sorry you're not here today, but he'll be back with us next week. We got a lot to talk about today, though, because it's Black Friday week. It's Thanksgiving week. We've got a lot to be thankful for here today. Coming up on this episode, we're going to talk about celebrating the holidays as we get into this holiday shopping season. We're going to talk about making it the holiday season again. Holidays without consumerism. We're also going to talk about some of our craziest Black Friday stories, the willingness

• 2:48Joshua Fields Millburn?

  to walk away from anything and much, much more. Also, coming up on page three, we'll review six often overlooked spaces in your home to declutter right now. But let's start with our callers. If you have a question or a comment for our show, we would love to hear from you. Our phone number is 406-219-7839, or you can email a voice recording right from your phone to [email protected]. Let us know if you're a Patreon subscriber so we can prioritize your message. By the way, big thanks to our patrons. Shout out to our simpletons over there on Patreon. You keep our podcast advertisement free because sing along at home, y'all. Advertisements suck.

• 3:30Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, they do. In fact, we have a sucky ad segment on page two. I want to talk about the suckiest kind of ads and when they become a little bit less sucky. We'll talk about all of that on page two. But first, our first question today is from Abby.

• 3:44Speaker 02

  Hey, minimalists. This is Abby from Sugarland, Texas, wanting to ask you, how does a minimalist go about getting back to the true meaning of holidays and celebrating the change of seasons without falling into the trap of consumerism?

• 4:01Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Falling into the trap of consumerism. So I like this because consumerism is a trap. It's almost a, it's almost a tautology because consumerism traps us into consumption. Consumerism is simply an ideology that acquiring more externalities are going to make me happy or complete. In the holiday season, that is often shown through what? Gift giving, right? We say that, oh, my, my love language is gift giving. And I think that's kind of like saying that Pig Latin is a romance language. Because gift giving isn't a real love language, any more than Pig Latin is a romance language. Of course, I want to be charitable here. I know what people mean by gift giving is a love language.

• 4:46Joshua Fields Millburn?

  They mean contribution is a love language. You have people in your life that you really care about, Abby, and you want to show them that you care. Unfortunately, consumerism and marketers and advertisers have shown us that the best way to show them that we care is by buying them widgets. And the more expensive the widget, the more that I care. Yeah, I really care about you if I buy you this, this nice thousand dollar watch, but I care about you three times as much if I buy you a three thousand dollar watch, right? And man, I must not care about you that much at all if I only bought you an eighty dollar watch. Or what if I didn't get you anything for the holidays? Do I not care about you at all?

• 5:29Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Do I only care about you if I'm willing to purchase a gift and give it to you on these obligatory gift giving days? These holidays are confusing for many of us because they stress us out. We're supposed to feel joy and excitement and love and connection during these times of the year. Maybe we take some time off of work, just foreign to me, because I, all of my adult life up until age thirty, I worked in the retail world. And I, the busiest time of year for me, where I was working many sixteen hour days, was around Black Friday and then all the way through till Christmas. So it was a chaotic time of year.

• 6:11Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And I spent most of, of November and December in shopping malls, working and trying to convince people to fall into the trap of consumerism, as Abby talked about. And so your question is an important one because It is possible to celebrate the holidays without falling into that trap of consumerism. Let's talk about what that might look like. Well, let's imagine for a moment that you went into this holiday season, you said, "I'm unable to buy a gift for anyone this holiday season, but I'm still required to enjoy myself and to lighten the load or lighten the lives of everyone else in my life."

• 6:54Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Well, with that outcome in mind, would you be able to figure that out? You might say, "Yeah, but it's gonna be really challenging, right? Because, well, because I don't know how to show that I love someone or care about them without giving them a physical good." And I say, "Okay, that's fine, but would it be possible to show someone you love them without giving them a physical good?" And of course, you know, deep down in your heart, the answer to that is yes. Of course, you show people every day that you care about them without having to give them something. And so, when I look at the people around me, the question is, "What can I do to show them that I care through tiny, little insignificant, often mundane actions, day to day?

• 7:39Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And then, do I need to amplify that for the holidays? Because what does it mean to love someone? It means to see them for who they are without trying to change them or manipulate them. And I think that's one of the problems with consumerism, especially gift-giving during the holidays. It can be, at its worst, it can be manipulative. It can become transactional, right? But of course, love is not a transaction. It's a non-transactable good. And so, I'm trying to express this non-transactable good through a transaction, and that's why you feel this level of discomfort. I could even hear it when you're asking the question. It's like, "I don't want to fall into this trap of consumerism." And maybe you're in that trap for a really long time, you didn't even realize you were

• 8:24Joshua Fields Millburn?

  there, because like a fish that's swimming in water, it doesn't realize that it's swimming in water. You've been swimming in consumerism for a long time. You've seen it every time. You turn on the TV, and there are all these ads that are convincing you to buy something for yourself or for someone else. Or you see everyone else get into the holiday spirit, and for them, that means buying gifts.

• 8:49Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Or if you're anything like me, you wait till the last minute because during the holiday season, I was so busy working and then all of a sudden on December 24th, I'm like, oh, crap, I have this whole list of of things I need to buy for people. I have a list of people for whom I need to give them something. And then I go to the mall and I just start going store by store by store by store, shopping for inspiration. That's what Nicodemus would call it. And is that love? It doesn't feel like love. It feels like panic. It feels like anxiety. It feels like stress. It feels like overwhelm. And not that good kind of overwhelm that you feel when there's limerence in a relationship that we often mistake for

• 9:31Joshua Fields Millburn?

  love as well. It's a it's a crushing anxiety. I need to show that I'm enough for the people around me. And I can only be enough if I buy the right things. And that's consumerism. It's using those externalities to complete me or to complete the relationship. And of course, it doesn't work. At best, you get something for someone and they enjoy it. They like it. They're pleased with it. But for how long? Because that pleasure, it fades. It's not real happiness. It's not real satisfaction. It's certainly not fulfillment. Now, on the flip side of this, I want to be clear. I'm not against gift giving or gift getting.

• 10:14Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I don't want to stand up here and be Scrooge McDuck and say, bah humbug, or just, I guess, Scrooge. Scrooge McDuck, too. I don't want to just stand up here and say, bah humbug, screw your gifts. I'm opting out of the holiday season altogether. I can tell you personally, I don't buy gifts anymore. But it took many, many years to sort of reprogram my relationships. I still buy gifts, but it's on non obligatory days. I'll get something for my wife and I'll just bring it home for her. Why'd you get this? It's November 7th. Well, what's special about today? I say, well, I love you every day. And while this gift isn't showing you, my love, it's just showing you that I see you and I witness you. And at best, a gift cannot supplant that experience of love.

• 10:58Joshua Fields Millburn?

  It can amplify your experience with another human being. It can enhance your experience in some way. And that's why many of the gifts that we give to other people, they're supposed to fill a void as opposed to expand the relationship and what we're able to do within the relationship. And so the minimalists have a couple of rules around this. We have that minimalist rulebook, 16 Rules for Living with Less, which Abby, you can download for free if you haven't already. It's over on our website, theminimists.com-rulebook. It's free and in there, there are 16 rules. Two of them involve gift giving. There is the minimalist gift giving rule and the minimalist gift getting rule. And I think part of turning the holidays

• 11:42Joshua Fields Millburn?

  into a more celebratory experience as opposed to an anxiety-ridden just time of year that we want to get through. I'm trying to survive the holidays, right? I just want to get through this gift giving experience. That doesn't feel good. If you feel like you're having to white knuckle the holidays, how good does it feel at the end of it? If you feel drained at the end of the holidays, then maybe you were doing the holidays wrong. And so I think it starts with asking for better gifts, which is really strange to hear coming from a minimalist, right? The minimalist gift getting rule is ask for better gifts.

• 12:25Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Because I don't want to say, no, don't get me anything ever. So instead of saying no, I tell people yes to what I would enjoy receiving. Maybe it's a bag of coffee from a local roaster that I enjoy. So a consumable like that. Other people could be wine or chocolate or a meal together.

• 12:46Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Maybe it's also just contributing beyond ourselves to something else that's greater than us. I often ask for people to just donate money to one of my favorite charities in my name, whether that's givewell.org, the Against Malaria Foundation, or Charity Water. Yeah, just send in a donation in my name. That way, you're contributing, I'm contributing, and I'm not getting another necktie or pair of cuff links, or something I would have never asked for in the first place. Although practically, I think it makes sense to ask for better gifts, even if there's something in your life that you really need. "I really need a new pair of boots." Okay, wonderful. Then tell the people around you that you need a new pair of boots, and it'd be really helpful if they're considering getting you a gift during the holidays,

• 13:31Joshua Fields Millburn?

  to get you that pair of boots, because it's something you'll actually use every day. It'll be useful, and because of that, it'll be a much more meaningful gift, not just for you, but for them as well, because every time you interact with that person now, they see you wearing those boots, and they're like, "Oh, yeah. I did that for you. I was able to contribute to you." Or maybe you know what? That refrigerator has been on the fritz for a couple of months now, and it's gonna go out soon. I could use some gift certificates to Home Depot, or Best Buy, or wherever you're gonna buy your refrigerator from. And that could be another way for them to contribute to you, as opposed to just going out there and shopping for inspiration. Before we get back to our callers, Savvy D., it is time for our lightning

• 14:16Joshua Fields Millburn?

  round. This is where we answer the Patreon community chat's question of the week, and we attempt to answer with a short, shareable, minimal maxim. You can find this episode's maxims in the show notes over at theminimalists.com/podcast, and every minimal maxim ever at minimalmaxims.com. We'll also deliver our weekly show notes directly to your inbox, including seven new maxims every Monday for free, if you sign up for our email newsletter at theminimalists.com. We'll never send you spam, or junk, or advertisements, but we will start your week off with a dose of simplicity. The question of the week this week is, "What's your craziest Black Friday story?" Well, I have a bunch, but before I get to those,

• 15:00Joshua Fields Millburn?

  let me check in with some of our listeners. Savvy D., you put this together for me today. And so before I give you my pithy answer and some of my own Black Friday experiences, let's hear what some of our listeners had to say. Melissa said, When I worked at a food stand at a mall, one customer got so angry when she realized my company had raised its prices on Black Friday that she simply threw her money at us. I was actually embarrassed for her, even though she was oblivious to how ridiculous she was behaving. Yeah, why is it so easy to overreact when we feel like this perceived slight in the moment? And of course, taking it out as someone who was not in charge of that, like Melissa

• 15:45Joshua Fields Millburn?

  didn't raise the prices. Melissa was just an innocent bystander and she was working for the company that happened to raise their prices. And maybe you can make an argument that that was predatory for them to raise their prices. Or there's probably another argument that says, hey, we need to staff up on a day like this and that costs us more. And so, you know what? We had to charge more money as a result because it required more workers on a day like that. Are both of those correct? Yeah, maybe. It's all about the meaning that we give to it as well. Also, like the throwing money at someone. I know most of us in certain contexts would love to have money thrown at us, right? And metaphorically, I always have money thrown at me, right? But in this context, it's awful.

• 16:30Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I think about those game shows where they put, well, they lock someone in a box, you know, and they like have all that money just going all around. Like, that sounds like straight joy. And it's fun and they never get any money. They end up walking out of there with like $12, right? But there's something about that experience where you're like, yeah, throw the money at me. And I bring this up because it's about recontextualizing these things. Black Friday for the longest time, for me, had something to do with, well, working a lot of hours. I think back to my corporate days when I worked in retail. And often, I would have to get up at 2:00 a.m. to get ready, to get the stores ready.

• 17:13Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And then also, before our stores would open at 6:00, we would go to all of these other stores, like Target and Kohl's and Best Buy, and we'd hand out these giant FSI's, they were called, freestanding inserts. And they're basically coupon books. Strangely, it's the one day of year where people are salivating for coupons. They just want... And you would go to line at Target or wherever you were, and I would just bring donuts and coffee with me, or donuts and hot chocolate, and I would hand out these coupon books. And people were like, "Yes, give me more." If you do that anywhere else... So I went to the mall right down the street right now with coupon books and started to try to hand them to people,

• 17:55Joshua Fields Millburn?

  they would be super skeptical. I said, "Get away from me. What are you doing, you creep?" But on Black Friday, we're so primed to consume, we're ravenous with consumption, that, "Yes, give me more. Give me more coupons. Give me more savings. Give me more stuff. More, more, more, more, more." And it's all about the context of where we are. And then you start to realize that when you are in a retail frenzy like that, we behave in ways that we would never behave by ourselves in our living room. The worst of it, if you saw our first documentary, Minimalism, when it was on Netflix or it's up on YouTube now,

• 18:39Joshua Fields Millburn?

  it opens up with some of the Black Friday chaos. And I would say that times have changed quite a bit. There's less of that now because we do a lot more shopping online. But I think the sentiment is still the same. The yearning, the craving, the lust for savings. And there's a scarcity element to it. And you see people trampling each other, behaving in ways they would never behave to save 30% on a vacuum cleaner or $100 off a big screen TV. Often, people wait in line for hours. They camp out overnight. In order to save a few hundred dollars.

• 19:24Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Now, you could also make an argument, it's all part of the experience and maybe you you enjoy doing that with your family. And yes, I think that's true. And I think a lot of the times, that's how it started. I remember all of my aunts, when I was really young, they would, my mom never went. And I never knew why at the time. She never like sat me down and explained it. But I think she just didn't want to be a part of this. But all of my aunts would get together and they'd go to the outlet malls on Black Friday. And it wasn't as much of a frenzy back then in the in the 80s and early 90s. But there was something about that where they were bonding and they happened to bond through shopping. Now, is that the best use of, is that the best way to bond? No, I don't, I

• 20:08Joshua Fields Millburn?

  don't think so at all. But I guess it's better to bond over shopping than just to shop in a frenzy and start trampling other people, which is the opposite of bonding. Back to our listeners here, Christina said, "It was 20 years ago, and I was the crazy person. I took my mother and daughter to Walmart in the middle of the night. There were no baskets left, so I just took a random one, presumably someone else's basket by the bathroom. Then I strategically placed my new basket in the way of other customers and gave my daughter a list of things to go get. She was 10 years old and would crawl into the

• 20:50Joshua Fields Millburn?

  crowd and come out with the item one at a time. Fast forward to Christmas, the items I had my daughter fight to get were actually her own presents." Whoa. To be fair, Christina, maybe your daughter's love language is survival of the fittest. You were just teaching her how to hunt there. Seriously, though, it feels like a metaphor for something, right? Maybe she actually enjoyed that hunt more than she enjoyed. It was like a scavenger hunt for Christmas gifts, in a way. I could see for a kid, that'd be, that could be really, really fun. Talk about making the holidays more meaningful. I mean, think about what we often do on Easter. It's an Easter egg hunt, right?

• 21:34Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And there's an experiential element to it, which is another great way for the minimalist gift giving rule is like gifting experiences. What if we went to a concert together? What if we had a picnic together? What is something you'd like to do together? Or what if I just gift you an experience? I don't have to go there at all, but maybe you'll really enjoy this spa. Maybe you'll really enjoy. Um, I'm going to get you a babysitter so that you and your significant other can have a night out together. I'm gifting you an experience or an experience by proxy. Right? And so with your daughter Christina, maybe it's a fond memory. I don't know. Or maybe it's she's traumatized by it too. Maybe she could have gotten trampled there.

• 22:17Joshua Fields Millburn?

  You get to decide that she ultimately gets to decide what the meaning of all of that was. But maybe in a weird way, the real gift was her playing at the store. And it had nothing to do with the physical item itself. I grew up in Dayton, Ohio, and I grew up really poor. And once a week on Fridays, my mom would take me to our local grocery store. It was called Big Bear. And she'd take me to the toy aisle and I would spend three or four hours in the toy aisle. And she would just let me do it. And I would compare and contrast, and she let me get one toy. Like I wanted one G I Joe figure. And there were hundreds of them there, right?

• 23:01Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Or dozens at least. And I would compare them and I'd lay them out and I would think about it. And I couldn't tell you the name of a single one of those G I Joes. But I remember those experiences so fondly because she let me explore. It was the experience. It wasn't the purchase. And yeah, we would buy a toy and I'd bring it home and I'd play with it, which would be another experience. Right? But it was never about the thing. It was about what the thing could do for me, which I think maps on to the holiday season quite well. Daniela said, "Back in the day, my family turned Black Friday into a full-blown road trip adventure. We'd fly into Monterrey, Mexico, pack 15 people into a rented van,

• 23:45Joshua Fields Millburn?

  and cross the border to McAllen, Texas, like a tiny, excited convoy. We'd crash at a hotel, then wake up in the middle of the night just to stand outside Tommy Hilfiger at midnight, teeth chattering in negative four-degree weather, waiting for those doors to swing open. Then it was a sprint. Coach, Ralph Lauren, the whole outlet marathon. Since it was the only time we ever shopped, we made it count. After a few years, though, the quote-unquote 'deals' stopped being deals. Hello, fake discounts. So the tradition died."

• 24:28Joshua Fields Millburn?

  You know, when you realize that tradition is harmful, or fraudulent in this case, right? It's so much easier to let go of that tradition. It's sort of like they... I took my daughter to see Wizard of Oz last year. It was an outdoor showing in Ojai. And of course, when you learn it's just a guy behind the curtain, it kind of loses its magic. And consumerism is sort of the same thing. You bring home all of your toys, or you get all the discounts you thought you were getting. But discounts are an interesting and mind-numbing thing sometimes, because often, especially now, this wasn't always the case, although maybe it was, and it was just better hidden, retailers will often mark up the price so they can

• 25:12Joshua Fields Millburn?

  give you a bigger discount. And so, that $600 TV becomes $700, so they can give you $200 off, instead of $100 off, because it feels more compelling to give you $200 off of the TV. Which makes you think, like, what were they doing the rest of the year? Were they just screwing you all year? It's like, oh, yeah, the rest of the year you were just being overcharged, and now this is the appropriate price? So Black Friday gets its name from, it's the time when retail businesses went from the red to the black in, on their books. So throughout most of the year, retail stores, they have to pay, they have exceptionally high opX and capX. The opX, your operational

• 25:56Joshua Fields Millburn?

  expenses and capX are your capital expenditures when you build out a retail store and you, you pay for all these fixtures and things, but especially the operating expenses of a retail store are quite high. At one point, I was managing $150 million in operating expenses for these, these retail businesses. And it was, because of that, because of all the money that goes into it, you were in the red all year. Black Friday is the day that you start to become profitable and then everything out through the rest of the year is profit. We often did 40% of our business in the last two months of the year. That's

• 26:36Joshua Fields Millburn?

  how much of a shopping frenzy is created with the holiday shopping season. But then you begin to realize like, well, wait a minute. These little tricks, these little tactics that are going on during this time of year, why aren't we doing some of those things earlier in the year? And the truth is, you are sometimes, but just to a lesser extent. But we've conditioned ourselves to expect really high discounts. And as a result, because of our expectations as consumers, what do we do? Well, retailers recognize that you want $200 off that TV, not $100 off the TV. And so they raise the price so they can lower it even further for you. And at least you feel good about it. Why? Because you're telling

• 27:19Joshua Fields Millburn?

  yourself a story about feeling good about your purchase. I saved $200 on that TV. In fact, we often use that sort of language to justify many of the things that we purchase for ourselves or for other people. I hear it happen all the time and I hear it in my own vocabulary. I have to stop myself. And it's like, oh yeah, I bought this thing, but I saved 30%. It was on sale. It's like, no, no, no.

• 27:47Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Sale price is fool's price because they fooled me into buying the thing. They created a sense of urgency that turned it into an impulse buy. It's another one of the rules the minimalists have, the 30/30 rule. We also call it the wait for it rule. Anything that costs more than $30, I wait 30 hours to purchase it. It's not because I don't have $30 to spend on the thing. It's because I don't want to consume on impulse. It's really easy to go into a grocery store and buy the things that are on your list. But then you see something else in the checkout line, you're like, oh, I'll just go ahead and get that. If it was just that one isolated incident, it's probably not that big of a deal. But it's never just the one incident.

• 28:29Joshua Fields Millburn?

  It adds up over seven days or seven weeks or seven months. And before you know it, seven years later of seven years of impulse purchases, how many tens of thousands of dollars have I wasted because I wasn't willing to wait for it? And so the wait for it rule simply puts some friction between me and that purchase. Just enough to say, okay, is this actually going to add value to my life? It's sort of the difference between reacting and responding to someone. A reaction is like, I need to, I need to take action immediately. Responding is being more intentional. And so I can respond to my impulse. I can see something I want to buy and say, ah, okay, I'll buy it. Wait, wait, wait. Let me respond to this.

• 29:13Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Let me wait 30 hours and if I need it 30 hours from now, I can come back and it will still be there. And guess what? You might come back tomorrow and it's not on sale. Okay, that's fine. In that one isolated incident, then yeah, maybe you end up spending more money. Or maybe you can simply go to them and say, hey, this was on sale yesterday. Would you be willing to honor the price that it was available for yesterday? What are they going to say? No, we don't want your money. No, you're trying to throw your money at them. And quite often they're going to say, yeah, yeah, we'd be, we'd be happy to honor that. But even if they're not, the wait for it rule ends up saving you a ton of money in the long run.

• 29:55Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Because most of the things that feel so urgent, the things that you need right now, I didn't even know this existed six minutes ago, but now I couldn't possibly live without it. At least that's the, the overreaction that we have in the moment. Soon as we put some distance between it, we realized like, oh yeah. Not only did I not need it, but it might just end up getting in the way. I was just walking this morning.

• 30:24Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I was walking this morning to go get something to eat at the grocery store. And there's an irony here because where our studio is situated between two of the largest malls in LA. The Beverly Center is right down here and then the Grove is right down here. And they're not just big malls, they're really well-appointed malls. They're nice malls relative to almost everywhere else in the country. I have a weird fascination with dying malls because I worked in so many malls and I love the YouTube videos. In fact, we did a whole episode about dead malls back in the day. Let's throw that in the show notes, Savvy D, because it's one of my favorite episodes. We just talked about malls that are dying and that transformation. But these two malls that are here, they're lavish. And they're just putting up the holiday decorations. We're recording this, you know, a week or two in advance.

• 31:09Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And so they're putting all of the holiday decorations up. And the Grove does it so, so well. They make it really easy to get into the holiday spirit. Now, of course, then they want you to buy things when you're there, but you don't have to. But as I'm walking through there, there's a park on the other side of it, like a beautiful. It's called Pan Pacific Park. It's really one of the prettiest parks in LA. And I almost feel like this is a metaphor for my own life. I had to walk through years of that retail consumerist experience before I was able to get to the sort of freedom and calm and joy of that park that I ended up wanting to walk through.

• 31:50Joshua Fields Millburn?

  So I'm walking through this giant outdoor mall in order to get to the peace that's on the other side of it. But as I'm walking through it, there's a ton of exciting things. There are these joyous displays of art. And of course, it's there to celebrate commerce, but it's also possible to go to a place like that. And I know because I've done this quite a bit and simply enjoy it for what it is. I could take my daughter there and we can look at the Christmas lights and we can get on the train that goes throughout the outdoor space. And we could even have a meal while we're there without needing to buy a bunch of products in order to express our love to someone else.

• 32:30Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And if anything, I especially want to avoid going to a place like that during Black Friday because that energy, it...

• 32:39Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I don't know, it's contagious. You see people just behaving in ways that I know I don't want to behave either. And so I wrote this essay a few years ago. I wanted to read it to you today because I think it's just as applicable today as ever. Get a sip of water here, just getting over this little bit of a cold I had, little children's cold. All right, here we go. This is called, "Let's Talk About Black Friday." Here we are in the midst of what is supposedly the most joyous time of year, the holiday season. And yet, for most of us, it's also the most stressful time of year.

• 33:20Joshua Fields Millburn?

  At some point, Santa Claus turned corporate and the holiday season metamorphosed into the holiday shopping season. Shopping. This one word, although birthed from great intentions, has fundamentally changed our outlook from bliss to grim, from joy to anxious, from celebrating Christmas to surviving the holidays. It's upsetting, and with consumption's vicious inertia, it seems like there's no way for us to exit the speeding train of consumerism. This Friday is the busiest shopping day of the year, Black Friday.

• 34:02Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Retailers prepare months in advance for this dark day, preparation that's meant to stimulate our insatiable desire to consume. Doorbuster sales, new products, gigantic newspaper ads, TV, radio, billboards, sale, sale, sale, early bird specials, one day only, get the best deal, act now while supplies last. See store for details.

• 34:30Joshua Fields Millburn?

  But as shiny as its facade may be, the pernicious aspects of Black Friday are not few. The pandemonium that takes place on this day is perhaps a broader metaphor for our culture as a whole, our consumer culture. On this day, we consume gluttonously, without regard for the harm we're inflicting on ourselves. On this day, greed becomes ravenous. On this day, we live without real meaning, buying gifts to fill a void we can't fill with material possessions. Perhaps one of our followers said it best, "Black Friday is the day we trample people

• 35:13Joshua Fields Millburn?

  for things we don't need, the day after being thankful for what we have." Sadly, we participate in this insanity in the name of a holiday, as if buying gifts was an ideal way to celebrate Christmas. But thankfully, we have options. Instead of embracing Black Friday, you can refuse to buy material possessions for people to display your love. Rather, you can showcase your love, caring, and affection through daily actions, every day, not just holidays. If you want to give gifts, why not gift an experience? A nice meal, tickets to a concert, a sunset on the beach?

• 35:56Joshua Fields Millburn?

  After all, the best, most loving gift you can give someone is your time and undivided attention. Presence is, indeed, the best present. Or, if that doesn't work, maybe you can buy everyone on your Christmas list a giant trashcan so they can throw away all the presents they received but didn't ask for in the first place. That's the thing, I remember seeing family members buying gifts for their kids.

• 36:30Joshua Fields Millburn?

  There's so much excitement in the moment, the unwrapping, dozens and dozens of gifts. But an hour later, it's just a trash heap. Most of the things will never be played with beyond that day, or that week, or that month. And it's ironic, that trip I was telling you, as I walked down to the, through that outdoor shopping mall and into the park, right on the edge of the shopping mall is what? A big, beautiful storage locker facility. And so you buy all these things for holidays, for yourself, for your home, to complete your life, to satisfy you, to fulfill you in some way, to embrace the trap of consumerism.

• 37:13Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And you store those things in your home for a while, and maybe you get a little bit of use out of them, and then they cease to be useful. In fact, the objects of your desire quickly become the objects of your discontent. They get in the way, and when they get in the way, they are clutter. And then we get fed up enough with the clutter, what happens? We move it into a closet, or a basement, garage, or eventually, we don't have space for it in our home. So it goes back to that same shopping mall, on the edge of it, in the storage locker. And so in a weird way, it feels like we could just bypass that whole step of dealing with the thing. You could go to the mall, and you could buy all the things you thought you needed, or the things you thought would express your love, and then instead of giving them somewhere

• 37:58Joshua Fields Millburn?

  else, or taking them home, just go ahead and put them in the storage locker that you're gonna start paying for right now. Now, of course, you're not gonna do that. Why aren't you gonna do that? Because it's painful. I don't want, why would I spend all my time and money and attention doing that? Well, yeah, it's, you don't wanna experience that pain, right? But you're going to experience it eventually, if you're not intentional with the decisions that you're making. And I speak from personal experience. I grew up really poor, and I thought the reason we were unhappy when I was growing up is we didn't have a lot of money. And so I went to remedy that. I skipped the whole college route, and I turned 18, I got that entry-level job, and I worked the next dozen years climbing the corporate ladder.

• 38:41Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And along the way, I bought all of the things that I thought would make me happy.

• 38:46Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Those things never did their job. And I bought gifts for other people I thought that would make them happy. But they weren't any happier a week later, two weeks later, three weeks later. A gift isn't going to make someone else happier. A new thing isn't going to make you happy. Happiness is your default state. The things can get in the way of it, or it can amplify what was already going on inside you. It can magnify your joy, but it can't create it. There's no happiness out there. It's always right here, right now. Speaking of right here, right now, I've got our right here, right now segment where we talk about one thing that's going on in the life of the minimalists.

• 39:28Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Before we do that, I want to talk about one other thing that's crazy for me for Black Friday. On October 31st was Halloween this year and every year. I got my first Black Friday email, and then I got another one the next day. One was from an air filter company. One was from a hosting company, a name registration, domain name registration company. Now, first off, can you imagine? I'm gonna, I really need to buy air filters for someone for Christmas. So I'm getting a Black Friday deal, and it said Happy Black Friday. It was Halloween. And then the next day, I get something from a domain registration company.

• 40:13Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And I'm thinking like, creating urgency around these things, like, there's nothing wrong with air filters. I have some. We have some right here in the studio. And if you go to theminimalists.com, I have a domain as well, right? I don't have a problem with those things, but I don't understand the need for everyone to have to participate in this Black Friday impulse. Save money, or at least perceive that you're going to save money on these things that you're going to buy anyway. We're going to force you into buying this a little bit earlier so we can change the books of our corporation at the end of Q4. Anyway, we'll get back to talking about Black Friday. I still have an entire switchboard of callers that I'd like to talk to, but first, real

• 40:58Joshua Fields Millburn?

  quick, for right here, right now, here's one thing that's going on in the life of the minimalist. We have two live events coming up here in Southern California. One this weekend, Black Friday weekend in Orange County. And then the last Sunday of the year in Los Angeles, right down the street from our studio here in West Hollywood, over at the Greenway Court Theater. And these are going to be our two last events for a while. We've been doing Sunday Symposium every single month, and it's time for us to take a bit of a break. So if you want to see us at a live event, we're going to plan some stuff for next year, but I don't know exactly what we're going to do yet. Savvy D and TK and Ryan and Sean and I, we're all trying to get together, figure out, reimagining

• 41:41Joshua Fields Millburn?

  what live events look like going forward, because we want to lean into that. But we're going to take a break right now, so we can discover, well, all the lessons we've learned from the last few years, doing these Sunday Symposiums every month. And it's, to be honest with you, it's my favorite thing that we do, these live events. I just get so much joy from the interactions with other people. And it's not joy from them, it brings that joy out from me. And I see that with them as well. And all kinds of people show up to these events. People often come by themselves. I would say 40% of the people who arrive there show up by themselves. And many of those people meet new friends, more, many of them meet long-term friends. They meet a community of people. And so I want to be able to provide that.

• 42:26Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And so if you want to attend one of these events, the tickets are free. SundaySymposium.com. We will be in Orange County this weekend, and the final Sunday of the year in Los Angeles before we take that break. We'd love to see you there. You can grab your free tickets at SundaySymposium.com. Speaking of gifts, I don't have any discount for you. I don't have a Black Friday doorbuster sale, but a quick reminder for you, Patreon has made it possible to gift a subscription of The Minimalist Private Podcast to anyone. So if you have a friend, or a family member, or a loved one who might benefit from our long-form, private, maximal episodes, visit patreon.com/theminimalists to gift them a

• 43:09Joshua Fields Millburn?

  month, several months, or up to an entire year of the private podcast. You can also sponsor a future member of our community. Help those people who can't afford to subscribe. We have a list of people who are waiting for a scholarship or a gift from someone else. So if you want to give the gift of less, you can gift a subscription to the Minimalist Private Podcast to someone you know, or to someone you don't know at all. Patreon.com/theminimalist. You can find all the details over there. All right, much more coming up, but first, here's a quick minimalist tip from one of our listeners.

• 43:43Speaker 03

  Hey, Minimalists. This is Chris, and I'm a Patreon subscriber from Fargo, North Dakota. On occasion in this podcast, the 90s crime noir film Heat has been referenced, and specifically how Robert De Niro's character, the master thief Neil McCully, is portrayed in the film as a minimalist. In the film, we see how his beautiful home is completely empty without possessions, and he is indeed selective of all the people he lets enter into his life, even to the point of echoing a mantra of, "Don't let yourself get attached to anyone

• 44:25Speaker 03

  you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner." De Niro's character may remind us all of the expectations we have of what a minimalist is, but I encourage listeners to think of the villain Roger Van Zant in the film, and how, I dare say it, his portrayal by William Fichtner may, just may, bear a striking resemblance to corporate world Josh. Ironically, Neil McCully, De Niro's character in the film, eliminates Roger Van Zant, played by Fichtner. Furthermore, symbolizing the

• 45:06Speaker 03

  end of the corporate world Josh, and a minimalist lifestyle is all that remains. De Niro's character's mantra in the film may have been the belief he had been holding on to that shielded him from doing the development he needed to feel fulfilled in his life. Have a great day.

• 45:26Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Chris, wow, thank you for that astute insight. You are correct. Actually, people on social media all the time send me pictures of William Fichtner. And I used to get Christopher Walken all the time, and I guess people, fewer and fewer people know who Christopher Walken is now, which is very sad to me. But yeah, William Fichtner, people, whenever we have a video that goes viral on Instagram or somewhere, people are always like just sending me pictures of William Fichtner, who were like, "Oh, you look like the cop from Prison Break," or whatever. But yeah, also, I agree, your willingness to walk away from anything is an important minimalist principle. And that's what I've been talking about a bit today, I'm gonna talk about it some more

• 46:08Joshua Fields Millburn?

  on page two, is the willingness to walk away from some of these holiday traditions, just so you can walk into new traditions. Now, that doesn't mean you have to walk into a new tradition at all, but no longer signing up, because that's what we do every year. We sign up again and again and again. We renew our subscription to holiday consumerism. And we wonder why we're so miserable. "I keep paying for this thing I don't want. I'm wasting my time, my attention, my money, and why am I doing it?" And oh, by the way, everyone else around me is kind of miserable with this whole holiday consumerism thing, too. They would also like to opt out. "Maybe we should all band together, and we just have a family meeting, or a friend's meeting."

• 46:52Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And we meet at a coffee shop, or we meet in the living room, and we say, "All right, guys, let's face it. A lot of the holiday season is super joyous, and I want to participate in that, but a lot of it is stressing me out. Are you guys feeling this, too?" Oh, yeah. Okay. What can we walk away from this holiday season that would make it more meaningful? If anyone else has a listener tip or insight about this episode, or any other episode, you can send a voice memo to [email protected], so we can 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.

• 47:35Joshua Fields Millburn?

  All right, that's the first 37% of episode 515. We'll see you on Patreon for the full two-hour maximal edition, which includes answers to a bunch more questions. Questions like, what does the perfect minimalist workspace look like? How freeing can it be to minimize 100% of your holiday decorations? And what does Charlie Sheen's new minimalist lifestyle look like now? 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 podcast episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Plus, you'll gain access to all of our podcast archives,

• 48:17Joshua Fields Millburn?

  all the way back to the very first episode. That's a decade ago. Next month, 10 years of the Minimalists. You can enjoy there over on Patreon. And that is our minimal episode for today. Big thanks to Earthing Studios for the recording space. On behalf of Ryan Nicodemus, TK Coleman, post-production Peter, Spire Jeff, Inspire Dave, Jordan No 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 never works. Thanks for listening, y'all. We'll see you next time.