561 | Good at Life

Joshua and T. K. speak with author Ben Meer about choosing a slower life in a fast world, why many work promotions turn into downgrades at home, creating distance from your current routine, five decluttering hot takes from apartment therapy, and more. Discussed in this episode: How can I choose a slower life in a culture that expects me to keep climbing? (2:08) Right Here, Right Now: Patreon Zoom calls and a programming note. (21:01) Listener Tip: What should someone look for when they're trying out a different way of living? (21:59) 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.

• 0:19Speaker 00

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

• 0:38Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, The Minimalists, I'm Joshua Fields Millburn. TK Coleman is here in the studio. You know, Forbes Magazine described today's guest as "the systems guy." He believes that most people don't need more inspiration. They just need better life infrastructure. His new book, I'll hold it up here for the camera, is called "How to Be Good at Life: Simple Systems to Achieve More and Stress Less." Please welcome to the show our new friend Ben Mira is here.

• 1:10Speaker 02

  Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here.

• 1:12Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I'm really enjoying the book so far. And also, I know I'm going to enjoy this conversation. We curated some questions, especially for you. Coming up, we're going to talk about choosing a slower life in a fast world. We'll also talk about why many work promotions turn into downgrades at home and creating distance from your current routine and so much more. Also, TK, on page three, we're going to bring Ben into our world. We're going to debate these five decluttering hot takes from apartment therapy. So get ready for that. Let's start with our callers, 406-219-7839, if you'd like to join the program. Or you could just record a voice memo right there on our website at theminimalists.com/podcast. We'd love to hear from you.

• 1:54Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Let us know if you're a Patreon subscriber so we can prioritize your message. Shout out to our patrons. You keep this podcast 100% advertisement free because sing along at home, yo. Advertisements suck. Yes, indeed. Our first question today is from Rhiannon.

• 2:12Speaker 03

  Hi, minimalists. Rhiannon here. I recently read Josh's essay Luxury Time. It really struck a chord with me. I was shocked to read this used to be your life and that it's still the reality for so many people today. While the sheer number of meetings alone sounds exhausting, the long hours, working 12-plus hour days without ever seeing the sun, sounds unfathomable. I know you've touched on your former career throughout the podcast over the years, but I'd be really curious to hear you dive deeper into what you thought and felt while living like that. How did you survive day to day? How did you avoid burning out after just a few months? How did you justify to yourself at the time that it was all worth it? And did you have any spare time at all? If so, what did you do with that time?

• 2:53Speaker 03

  I guess I'm just trying to understand how so many people, especially in Western countries, accept this way of living because it seems completely unsustainable to me. I recognize that a lot of people might not have any other options financially, or they might work in certain industries like healthcare. But I'm talking about the industries where people have consciously, or perhaps unconsciously, chosen to live like this. Your essay hit home because I've recently been grappling with whether or not to pursue a promotion. For the past few months, I've been test trialing a higher role temporarily. It's a distinct jump into an executive level position, and I have to admit, I'm not loving it. It means more hours, more stress, and less meaningful work. Unfortunately, the culture in my line of work, as it is in so many industries, is to constantly

• 3:38Speaker 03

  climb the ranks. People who choose not to rise are often viewed as stagnant. There's an underlying assumption that everyone should want to progress. But my priority right now is spending time with my young family, enjoying my hobbies, and embracing a slower pace of living. Recently, I've delved deeper into works like Oliver Berkman's 4,000 Weeks and Vicky Robins' Your Money or Your Life, which have reinforced my desire to prioritize my precious and finite time over more money. And it makes me wonder why more people don't choose the same. Thanks.

• 4:09Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Wow, Ben, there's so many questions in here. Let me just give you some context real quick, and then I want to hear from you. The essay that she's referencing goes out in our weekly Simple newsletter, and it was called Luxury Time. And it was a flashback to my 2007 Mondays. In fact, we had this thing called Meeting Mondays. And so I start, I've got it right here, I'll put a link to it in the show notes, I won't read the whole thing here, but I start the day pulling into the parking garage at 5:27 a.m. And from there, it's just a series of, there's basically 12 hours of chaos, and then the workday is finally ready to start, it feels like. Because it's meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting. Now, thankfully, it wasn't seven days a week of that. It was Meeting Mondays.

• 4:53Joshua Fields Millburn?

  We tried to cram all the stuff in here. Most of the meetings were a bit nonsensical, and we just developed this routine over the years that you're supposed to do. And so she had questions here about burnout and about, I don't know if you would call it work-life balance, but also maybe there's a lot for us to unpack with her question. Maybe we start with the promotion that she is considering. She said it brings her more hours, more stress, and less meaningful work. Maybe you could talk to her a bit about choosing a slower life. What does that look like?

• 5:27Speaker 02

  This question really hit home for me because back in 2019, I remember being on the 42nd floor of a high-rise in New York City. I'm the last person in the building, working on a PowerPoint deck that no one is going to remember in a few days. And at that time in my life, I was thinking about striving for the next promotion at this high-powered consulting firm. And fortunately, shortly after the pandemic hit, and it was a time for me to just pause and reflect and ask, is this what I actually want? And when I asked that question, I realized that I want to live a more creative life. I had this dream and aspiration to become a writer.

• 6:09Speaker 02

  And I purposely decided to be average at my job to not go after that promotion so I could allocate more of my time and energy into this thing that was giving me more energy. And being average at your job, it doesn't mean that you're letting down your teammates. It doesn't mean that you're mailing it in or you're quiet quitting. You are doing a good job, but you are not taking on additional responsibilities outside of your scope. You're not necessarily pursuing a promotion that doesn't pay enough to justify it. And that was one of the best decisions that I ever made. What was challenging was a few months later, when I got that first performance review, and it said that I was middle of the pack, average, and my identity as a high performer,

• 6:54Speaker 02

  there was some internal cognitive friction there. And then my fiancee Jade mentioned to me, this is exactly what you had decided to do. You decided that you're going to do a good enough job there. And I think this idea of good enough is very important. And as a result of allocating the time towards my passion project of writing, about a year later, I was able to leave that job and do something that gave me a lot more energy. So my advice would be to take a step back. And just because society is telling you to pursue that promotion, or your colleagues or your family are telling you to pursue that promotion, I think we need to normalize taking the advice of people that we care about in our lives.

• 7:36Speaker 02

  But ultimately, it is our lives to live, and we need to do what's best for our career and what's best for ourselves.

• 7:43Joshua Fields Millburn?

  TK, I think also, when I think about this, I also don't want to shun promotions just to say, oh, well, that is bad. Sometimes pursuing something that is more than what you have right now is the better path for some people.

• 7:58Speaker 04

  Absolutely. And you have to know that for yourself, right? Ben and I were talking before we started about how when you're early on in your career, that's how your focus has to be. You're very easy to replace. It's inexpensive to replace you. There's a lot of competition. You're hungry for knowledge and experience. You've got to give your all. But then, as you begin to accumulate some of the things that you want, one of the things that Ben mentioned is that you've got to define how much is enough. Because if you don't do that ahead of time, you're going to always be shifting the goalposts. And it's okay to negotiate goalposts, but that's different from impulsively shifting them. Negotiating is stopping, stepping back, taking inventory of your life and saying, now that I've gotten some of what I wanted, am I happy about that?

• 8:43Speaker 04

  Is this the direction in which I want to keep on moving? Am I happy with who I'm becoming in the process of doing this kind of work? It's important to do inventory of those kinds of things. Yes, nothing wrong with ambition, but unchecked, unbridled ambition is the death of all of us.

• 8:58Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Ben, maybe you can help me talk to Rhiannon about the difference between needing to grow in order to fit into a new role that makes you feel alive. And then also, there's also this sort of societal pressure to grow. You're supposed to strive for the promotion, the paycheck, the different job. Nothing wrong with going after those achievements. In fact, your book, you talk about achievements. But some of them put us in a position where we're growing only to meet the demands of the society or culture around us.

• 9:32Speaker 02

  It's important to step back and also ask what season of our lives we are in because it can be very challenging when you're trying to grow in every dimension of your life at once. So if your priority right now is your career, I do think it makes sense to be, to challenge yourself and to continue to build new skills and to, and to network and to take on responsibility to increase your capacity. But maybe you're all of a sudden a young parent and continuing to invest and strive so much into your career would take away from being around your family more or being able to lean in more on the family side. So my advice would just be, you don't want to try to necessarily do everything at

• 10:14Speaker 02

  once. I think it is good to satisfy in some areas of your life. So you can be good enough in those areas so that you can really thrive in the areas where you're, you're focusing your attention on.

• 10:25Joshua Fields Millburn?

  The thing that Ben was talking about earlier, sometimes that you're, a promotion at work is sort of a downgrade in your personal life everywhere else. And I certainly experienced that. The heart of Rihanna's question was asking like, how did you tolerate that? How did you not burn out? And I think there are a few reasons. I mean, one is I did ultimately burn out at that. A lot of 80 hour work weeks, which I don't recommend. But I think the other reason, I was just really young and I wanted to get the promotions early. I wanted more money, but I didn't stop and ask, how much is enough? I also didn't ask, what is this in service of? What is more money, more promotions? If it's, I need to pay my bills, that's wonderful. But let me take a look at these bills. Let me scrutinize my, my spending

• 11:07Joshua Fields Millburn?

  a bit more. Because where she's going with this is, maybe I need to sacrifice some money so I can do some more meaningful work. And that's certainly what I did when I walked away from the corporate world. I took a 90% pay cut from walking away from the corporate world. And not that money is bad. I'm not allergic to money. But what I was allergic to was, I saw the path that I was headed down. TK, I wrote down this maxim here, "A life you have to recover from leaves little time for living." That's the life that I was in. I wasn't living much. And I find myself, I can step back into those patterns pretty

• 11:45Joshua Fields Millburn?

  quickly. The, the workaholism is a gene that I seem to have and to prove my adequacy to the world around me, even though no one's really paying attention. But it's also, it makes me feel like I have a sense of control over the, the controllables. It's the one area of my life where I feel like I can control this. And so it becomes addictive in a way. So what does that mean to you? A life you have to recover from leaves little time for living?

• 12:15Speaker 04

  I think it goes back to Ben's earlier observation about ambition without boundaries. You know, I think about the concept of when you're in college, finals week. You might have a regular, healthy routine of studying a certain amount of hours per week. But then what happens when it's finals week? Everybody just goes all in. Everyone lives an abnormal lifestyle. And then they say, no movies, no parties, no hanging out. I'm actually going to be a really bad friend to you for this week because I'm just going all in, preparing for my finals. And that's actually fine. But you can't live your entire life like that. And I think it's also appropriate to have various versions of finals week throughout your life. You may have a wedding that you want to pay for. You may need to get out

• 12:58Speaker 04

  of a certain amount of debt. And so you may need to double down and say, for two months, I'm going to do something that I don't really love or enjoy doing, but I need the money. Or for two years, I'm going to do it. And so having that boundary and knowing your why is what makes that palatable because you have something to look forward to. You get a sense of accomplishment when you've completed it. And you have a measuring rod for knowing when you're done. But it's when we say, hey, I'm a part of this culture. And I just got to do this thing because I'm going to get the negative review if I'm not as ambitious as everyone else. Then it just becomes like a kind of addiction. And this leads me to a question for you, because I see it as related to this question. When you get that review, and they're like, yeah, you're kind of the middle. That's hard on the ego because you've

• 13:42Speaker 04

  identified yourself as this ambitious person. But it's also hard on your social life because that can make, that can affect the way you're treated at work. How do you navigate that part when you're happy with your performance, but the people around you are kind of looking at you like, Ben, you really need to step it up?

• 14:00Speaker 02

  It's important to come back to this Mark Twain quote, "When everyone's on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect and think, do we, when you look around and you see people are burnt out, people are tired, people are stressed, is that really what is best for me? And that's hard to, because you have this social pressure coming on you and expectations of what other people are projecting onto you. And you have to be courageous. You have to be bold. You have to be comfortable in your own skin to just accept like, this is my life. I'm here for a short amount of time. I'm going to do right by the people that I love. I'm going to put out good work. I'm not going to let

• 14:43Speaker 02

  my teammates down. But at the end of the day, I need to be able to live with the life that I've built."

• 14:49Speaker 04

  Yeah. I think it can help if you have the opportunity to communicate some of those internal changes. It's not always appropriate to do it ahead of time, but I see that playing a factor in this question here, that, that there are two aspects of it. If I step back a little bit, then maybe I, I have to renegotiate my sense of personal identity. But also, if I step back a little bit, there may be some social judgment. There may be some misunderstanding. And if there's an opportunity to say, hey, look, just as a heads up, I'm going to be approaching my work with a greater concentration on things like efficiency, high quality service,

• 15:30Speaker 04

  and I still want to be ambitious, but I want to be ambitious on these two or three things. Or I want to be ambitious with respect to quality in this particular area. And so I won't be doing, you know, this kind of stuff over here as much. And I'm letting you know, because I want you to know, it's not a, a case of lost passion, but a case of focused, more intentionally harnessed passion.

• 15:52Joshua Fields Millburn?

  That essay that I was talking about earlier, the luxury time essay, it was really this time of my life that was filled with two types of clutter. Well, there were other forms of clutter, obviously, the mental, emotional clutter of the stress of all of it. And I do want to talk to you about maybe the less stress component of, of, of the work, because I think you hinted at that, Ben. But for me, there was the career clutter and there was the calendar clutter. The calendar clutter is just everything was full all the time. And meeting Monday was the perfect, almost hyperbolic illustration. In fact, there's a part toward the end of the essay where I have to say, none of this is made up. In the sense that these meetings actually happen and they happen in this rapid succession.

• 16:35Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And it was stressful in ways that I didn't even realize they were stressful at the time because I was the frog sort of boiling in the proverbial water. And so sometimes we have to step back to realize how stressful this life is. And this is where Rihanna is right now. She's beginning to, to step back and say, oh yeah, I don't want to take on more stress. But I think there's another side of this. And so I think if we just walk away from meaningful work, that can also create a type of stress that we don't think about. Yeah, it'd be, it sounds great for about a week or two weeks. You're going to sit on the couch and, and watch Netflix and eat popcorn or whatever the leisure is. And

• 17:17Joshua Fields Millburn?

  that's great. But that's to break, it's great because you're breaking up a pattern, right?

• 17:22Speaker 02

  Maybe you've experienced this too, but I really used to have these like Sunday scaries at the end of the weekend, sort of this anxiety that comes ahead from an unplanned week. And often that's just, I think our brain asking for a plan. So we are, we typically deal with stress sort of like in the moment downstream. But I think one thing that can really help is to go a little bit upstream to try to cut some of the stress off from the source. And one thing that helped me a lot was, I call it system Sunday. And this is when you carve out 30 to 60 minutes on Sunday. And it has a couple of parts. The first part is plan mode. And this is when you just get clear on your priorities for the upcoming week and then actually schedule them on your calendar. And this can help

• 18:06Speaker 02

  you get ahead of some of that friction that you might be experiencing in your week. Maybe you have, you know, four hours of back to back meetings. And you're like, okay, when am I going to actually go to the bathroom here? Right? And maybe you're able to create a little bit of buffer between those meetings. And I understand that not everyone is, is able to do that. Or maybe you realize you're double booked and you can move things around so you're not experiencing that sort of friction in the moment. But I've just found that that sort of half an hour on the weekend of just planning your week, it helps sort of calm that stress and anxiety in your head. And then you can pinpoint the specific, you know, if you are only going to be giving a certain amount of hours into your work, it's like, well, how can I do my best job in those, in that, you know, three hours of maybe deep

• 18:50Speaker 02

  work, where I'm working on my most creative project, or I'm working on my most strategic product, project, and being really intentional about like, what is going in those blocks on your calendar? I think also, if you do have some flexibility over your schedule, maybe moving, trying to protect your deep work for the mornings and moving some of those meetings to the afternoon, if you can. So you are like putting your best energy towards the most important work. That can move your life forward.

• 19:19Joshua Fields Millburn?

  TK, if Rihanna was in your apprenticeship program that you were doing back in the day, and she was facing these similar struggles, how would you coach her through it?

• 19:30Speaker 04

  I mean, I just start with the same way I would if a friend's coming to me complaining about their marriage. After listening to some of the problems, I would say, all right, let's come back to all of this. But tell me why you married her. Tell me why you are with her positively. I assume there's something there, but let's talk about that. Because usually, the problems are shorthand for how we lost sight of the thing that makes us, you know, that makes us come alive. And so I would like to focus on that, because that can help us understand where we might have taken a wrong turn. It's sort of like if you're on a road trip, and you call me up and you say, man, I don't know what happened, but I got lost. I got off on some exit and whatever. I can't tell you what highway

• 20:14Speaker 04

  to get back on, which direction to start moving in until I say, where were you going when you initially got in that car? Where were you trying to go?

• 20:20Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 20:21Speaker 04

  And that's where I want to center the conversation, because that's going to give us some context to let us know what our options are.

• 20:27Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Ryan, and I'd love to give you Simplify Everything. It's our five-week decluttering course. But specifically, there is a week in there where we talk about career and calendar clutter. And I think that will help you out a lot. I would love to give that to you as our gift to you. For anyone else listening to this, if you want to take Simplify Everything, it's our five-week decluttering course. We go through physical clutter. That's where it starts. And then we talk about digital clutter, calendar and career clutter, financial clutter, relationship clutter. You can find all the details and the student testimonials over at simplifycourse.com. Okay, we still have some more callers to talk to. But first, real quick for our Right Here, Right Now segment, here's one thing that's going on in the life of the minimalist. Our next Friday afternoon minimalist Zoom call, I have a

• 21:09Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Zoom call with the minimalist, me and Ryan and TK. That's in less than two weeks. So mark your calendars for Friday, November 6. That's a special holiday edition.

• 21:19Speaker 04

  Two days before my birthday.

• 21:20Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes.

• 21:21Speaker 04

  That's the holiday, November 8.

• 21:25Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And he'll be dressed in full Christmas gear for any of it, right?

• 21:28Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 21:29Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Then definitely Christmas music will be on in the background. But next Friday afternoon, Minimalist Zoom is on Friday, November 6, at 3:00 PM Eastern. You can find all the details at theminimalists.com/zoom. Also, a quick programming note, our studio will be closed next week. Savvy D and I are both traveling. But don't worry, the podcast will be back in two weeks, which leaves you with just enough time to dive deep into our Patreon archives. All of our archives are over there on Patreon. Before we move on to page two, here is a listener tip from one of our listeners. This is from Jim in Italy.

• 22:05Speaker 05

  Ciao, minimalists. This is Jim calling from Italy. I've been going on a somewhat minimalistic journey for the past 10 years, thanks to you guys, kind of pushing me in the right direction. It's almost like going to church, you know? It's, I feel like you guys are my buddies. I was going to just suggest, I'm listening to this podcast right now, where people are talking about relocating, dislocating. I did that, all the way from, you know, New York City, and then Virginia, and then over to Italy. And it's been a really, really good change for me. But I know that when people are in those transition periods, you were just talking about, you know, do you run away from things? Do you, how do you make these decisions? What's the best way to do it? There's a program that I did,

• 22:49Speaker 05

  which is really cool. It's called Work Away. There's a website. There's also, it can be called Woofing and things like that. If you just want to hear yourself, talk to yourself, you know, get out of the clutter of your own life, and start listening to yourself a little bit more. But you do need some form of community or purpose. There are so many people that host others for free. And you go to anywhere in the world, and maybe it'll be working on a farm, maybe it's babysitting, maybe it's watching dogs. It could be whatever you want, based on your interests. And you go to a new place, there's usually a limited period of time that you're going to be there. There's no money involved. And you get to experience another chapter of your life in somebody else's space. Really, really cool

• 23:34Speaker 05

  thing to do, to be able to unplug with very limited, you know, responsibilities. And it's just a way to simplify. So I would suggest that to anybody who's thinking about making the change in their life, because it's a way to have adventure without all the scariness of diving headfirst into something that you're not ready for. So gives you a taste of it. I did that program. And 10 years later, I just went on a run. And I'm just running past the property where I had done some work away, work for somebody. And my house, actually, that I bought 10 years ago, is right up on the hill. I didn't even realize how close it was. So just it resonated with my soul. It felt good. And I landed in my new home.

• 24:19Speaker 05

  That was 10 years ago. Feels like, you know, 100 years ago. Because now this is home. Anyways, I hope this helps someone out there. And thanks again for everything you guys do. It's been a wonderful, wonderful journey, listening to you guys. And I appreciate the continued work you guys do. It's not easy to stay on task like you guys do. And I appreciate it.

• 24:42Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Jim, thanks so much for the reflection and the recommendation. Savvy D, I know you said you were looking into doing Work Away before you started working with us. What was appealing about it to you?

• 24:52Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, logistically, I don't know if it actually would have like gone well at all. Because I wanted to be a pro skater. And, and I would be kind of just like traveling all over the world, doing work for, in exchange for living in some like random country with people. But it just sounded fun. Like when I was young, I wanted to live in a van and just travel around, which I did a little bit of, but not by myself. And it wasn't my van. But, but I don't know, the freedom of doing that, especially when you're young, like I was like, maybe 19 when I was considering this. I didn't have any like bills. And I was living with my parents. So I was like, oh, that would be a cool, like,

• 25:35Speaker 06

  little, what do they call it? But like the year before you go to college?

• 25:38Joshua Fields Millburn?

  A gap year.

• 25:38Speaker 06

  Yeah, a little gap year before I like decide what I really want to do. I didn't end up doing it. But it seems like a really good way to just like explore things if you don't know exactly what you want to do with your life at whatever stage you're in.

• 25:51Joshua Fields Millburn?

  TK, I'm wondering, what do you think someone, what's ideal for someone to look for when they're trying out a different way of living? Like, that, I know for a lot of people, seems like a far left turn. For some people, it'd be super appealing. But what should I be looking out for if I was say, hey, man, I need a different way of living? Like when I worked, walked away from the corporate world, were there some questions I probably would have benefited from asking myself?

• 26:14Speaker 04

  Yeah. What's most unlike my life? What's most outside of the boundaries within which I would normally choose? What gives me the best opportunity to learn something new, to engage people with whom I might not otherwise interact, you know, and so on? So I think the goal of an experience like this is, you know, there's an old saying that discovery isn't discovery if you know what's going to happen. And I think the point of something like this is discovery, to place yourself in spaces where certain interactions are possible, certain activities are possible, and you get to learn something new about yourself.

• 26:53Speaker 02

  Ben, didn't you move to Vermont a few years ago? That's absolutely true. Changing your environment is one of the best ways to adopt new habits, or at least break bad habits. So when I was living in New York, there was a convenience store right next to my apartment. And I had gotten in the habit of, you know, just having a Snickers bar before I, you know, went up to the apartment. But when I moved to Vermont during the pandemic, there wasn't a convenience store right there. There was no Snickers bar to grab. So changing your environment can be incredible if you want to mix things up. I would say another question is, where I think a lot about the community and the types of people where you are going. If you're surrounding yourself by people that are reading books, that are eating well, that are, you know, able to have

• 27:38Speaker 02

  interesting conversations and disagree while still being respectful, it can make a world of a difference. I remember a time when I had a roommate, and he just lived in a way that was really inspiring to me. He didn't own a lot of stuff, but the things that he had were, you know, very high quality. He took care of his side of the apartment in an incredible, incredible way. It was like sort of adult, I was, it was osmosis for like adulting. He had velvet hangers for his clothes. I just started to take care of the stuff that I owned more. And there was an interesting study that, that says that if you are within 25 feet of a high performer, your own performance will increase

• 28:21Speaker 02

  by 15%. If you're within 25 feet of a low performer, your performance will decrease by 30%. So excellence and mediocrity are both contagious. So I appreciate you guys allowing me to mooch off of your greatness today by being here. I'm sorry for, you know, holding y'all back a little bit. But

• 28:42Speaker 04

  Well, I'm just hoping that I increase rather than you decrease by being around me.

• 28:50Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I definitely get that from TK. I mean, he's made me a better podcaster, a better friend. And I will say that he's never tried to do any of those things. He's, hey, Josh, I have a seven step plan for you to be a better friend. It just wouldn't work. Here's the system for improving our friendship. That, there are some things that are a bit more nebulous than than that. And so TK, when we're, we surround ourselves by, you know, you are the five people you spend the most time with, as they say, right? Now, that doesn't mean that I want to surround myself with people who are just like me. In fact, often, it's the opposite.

• 29:30Speaker 04

  Well, if

• 29:32Speaker 04

  If you're gonna surround yourself with people that are just like you, you better make sure that you are the fully actualized version of yourself that you want to be, right? And if you think you are, you're probably in trouble. You want to be true to not only the self that you are today, but to the self that you are potentially. And so you want, I think Ben's point here is about surrounding yourself with people that might challenge you to be better in ways where you have a difficult time challenging yourself. We all have these things where it's like, man, I know I should read more. I would love to be able to eat healthier. And maybe that's a group that you can go place yourself around because it can make it easier for you to take that step.

• 30:10Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah. And if I have this sort of nebulous goal of read more, it's also getting specific on what does that mean? Does that mean I want to read two pages a day? If so, that's great. Now at least I know what read more looks like. Or is it an unrealistic goal? I want to read a book a day? Well, okay, you can, I guess theoretically do that, depending on how fast you read, but you're going to forsake all of these other things along the way. The thing I like about a work away program or a gap year or something like that is sometimes you just need to put distance between you and your routine to see what your current routine, your current habits are actually costing you. And that brings us back full circle to Rihanna's question earlier.

• 30:53Joshua Fields Millburn?

  The end of that essay, it's called Luxury Time because I'm talking about I had several luxury watches back in my corporate days. And not that I think anything's wrong with owning a nice watch. I think they can be beautiful, but the reason that I owned it was the societal or social pressure to be impressive and to look impressive to other people. I didn't really want them. It was a memetic desire. And the quote that I had in there had something to do with Siegel's Law. It says that, "A man with one watch knows what time it is, but a man with two watches is never sure." So I guess I didn't stand a chance.

• 31:33Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I had several expensive time pieces, but no time peace. And I think that's where Rihanna is going with this. At one point, the thing that I wanted was achievement. The thing that I wanted was more, more, more, more, more. At least that's what I thought I wanted through those memetic desires. But maybe what I really wanted wasn't the thing that could be measured. I don't have a measuring stick, a yardstick for peace, but you know it when you experience it. And peace is usually uncovered. It's not acquired through addition. It is uncovered through subtraction. Well, for anyone else has a listener tip for the show, just like Jim, we'd love to

• 32:15Joshua Fields Millburn?

  hear from you, head on over to theminimalists.com/podcast. Record a voice memo right over there so we can feature your voice on the show. Up next, page two and page three. We've got a lot more to talk about, but first, let's take a quick pendeculation break. We'll be right back. All right, y'all, that is the first like 30% of episode 561. We'll see you on Patreon for the full two hour maximal edition with Ben Mear, which includes answers to a bunch more questions like, what are some useful and simple systems to reduce household clutter? Why do you have so many coffee mugs if you don't need that many? And in the wake of my mea culpa last week, TK and I have a friendly disagreement about advertisements this week.

• 32:57Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And we actually find some places we agree and some places where we differ. Plus a million more questions and simple living segments over on the Minimalist Private Podcast on Patreon. The link is in the description. When you subscribe, you can listen to our private episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Plus you'll gain access to all of our archives, all the way back to the very first episode. Big thanks to Ben Meer for joining us today. His new book is called How to Be Good at Life. We'll put a link to that 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 Fields Millburn.

• 33:38Joshua Fields Millburn?

  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. Peace.