Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists – Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus
Some of my favourite excerpts…
“It turns out that the old cliche is true,” Colin continues. “Our possessions possess us. All the things I owned kept the back of my mind activated. I used to sit around and feel weighed down by all the stuff in my life. I’d worry about everything I had, thinking ‘I’ve got this much, so now I need more—I need to level it out: I have the TV, so I need the DVD player; I have the garage, so I need a nice car to fill it; I have this, so I need that.’ It’s a never-ending cycle, a cold war with yourself.”
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“I think I have a pretty simple message,” he says. “There is more joy and fulfillment in pursuing less than can be found in pursuing more.”
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something was … it was me. I no longer bought in to the justifications, to the bullshit mantras, to painting people with statistics. I was tired of the so-called needs of the business. None of this was in line with my values or with me as a person anymore.
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new and exciting/terrifying today will soon become routine, just another part of everyday life. When this happens, we’ll need to move on to the next elementary-school experience if we want to keep growing. Without growth, people atrophy: we waste away, and in a meaningful way we die inside. Hence, we must continue to find new ways to grow, new elementary schools to crash.