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The truth is that nearly all the pressure we feel is completely internal.
Happiness comes from within, from inside yourself, from living a meaningful life.
So, if you truly want to maximize what you learn from this book, we ask you not only read its content, but also do three things as you read:
Our next step was to identify our priorities. We started prioritizing by dividing our anchors into two categories: major anchors and minor anchors.
Major anchors were the most obvious things keeping us from feeling free,
Minor anchors made up the bulk of our lists and included cable bills,
In late 2009, shortly after Joshua’s mother had died, while his marriage was in shambles and we were both unhappy with our current nose-to-the-grindstone situations, Joshua came across a website called Exile Lifestyle, developed by a guy named Colin Wright.
Because he traveled, Colin owned only 72 things at the time—there were pictures of all his possessions on his website—and all of his possessions fit into a bag he carried with him while he traveled. The most striking part about this story was Colin’s contentment: He exuded happiness and excitement and passion. He loved his life.
Through Colin we discovered two other minimalists who were in many ways much like us: Leo Babauta and Joshua Becker.
The point is minimalism is a tool to help you achieve freedom. Freedom from fear, freedom from worry, freedom from overwhelm, freedom from guilt, freedom from depression, freedom from enslavement. Freedom. Real freedom.
A word of warning: It isn’t easy to take the first few steps, but the journey gets much easier and more rewarding the further you go. But the first steps into minimalism often take radical changes in mindset, actions, and habits. So, if we had to sum it up in one sentence, we would say, Minimalism is a tool to eliminate life’s excess, focus on the essentials, and find happiness, fulfillment, and freedom.
After much cerebration, deliberation, discussion, research, and experimentation, we discovered Five Values that allow us to live a meaningful life:
Health is the most important of the Five Values.
With respect to the foods you eat, and irrespective of your dietary needs or requirements, there are certain foods you should completely eliminate from your diet if you want to feel better.
Any drinks other than water. Coffee, caffeinated tea, soda, bottled juice, et cetera—none of these liquids are water. Most add unnecessary calories to your diet, and they will never hydrate you like water.
Pescatarianism. This is essentially the diet to which we both adhere currently. Pescatarians are vegetarians who eat fish. We also consume some dairy products, albeit significantly less than we used to.
As it turns out, we discovered four main anchors in our own lives that were keeping us from pursuing our passions: identity, status, certainty, and money.
Step 1. BUDGET.
Step 2. PAY YOURSELF (INVEST).
Step 3. DEBT-FREE.
Step 4. MINIMIZE.
Step 5. CONTRIBUTE.
