Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life

by Joshua Fields Millburn

It’s obvious your important relationships—negative or positive—are in your top two tiers, with the most important residing in the primary tier. But unfortunately, because the majority of your relationships reside in the periphery, you probably spend the majority of your time with your peripheral relationships. Consequently, if you’re like most people, you focus most of your time, effort, and attention on the group of people who matters least to you. This must change. First, take a look at everyone in your peripheral tier. Are some of these folks people you’d like to see play a larger role in your life? Are they the people you’d like to have in your primary or secondary tiers? If so, what actions must you take to strengthen these relationships? What actions must you take to help them grow? Take a moment and consider these relationships.

You can’t change the people around you, but you can change the people around you. Sometimes you have to get rid of certain relationships, even relationships of great value. Sometimes a person’s beliefs or values are radically different from yours. When this is the case it’s okay to terminate the relationship, or at least to change the terms of the relationship.

If these people are important enough to be in your top tier, then they are important enough to merit your undivided attention when you are engaged with them. No cellphone. No instant messaging. No texting. No watching the TV in your peripheral vision. Your relationships are important and they need to be treated accordingly. Hang on to their every word. You’ll be pleasantly surprised with the reaction you get from people when you give them your full attention.

For example, let’s say you’re an aspiring minimalist, but your partner is an enthusiastic collector—a clear dichotomy of beliefs. Your partner believes collecting porcelain figurines or vintage guitars is the bomb diggity; you believe their treasures are clutter. So you’re left scratching your noggin, wondering how to convert them to your singularly valid viewpoint, which can be mind-numbingly frustrating. Don’t worry, though,

you needn’t get on the same page right way; you need only understand you both have your reasons for being on separate pages. By tolerating someone’s quirks, and allowing them to live happily within their own worldview, you may not understand their obsession with creepy statuettes or unplayed musical instruments, but at least you will be on a path toward understanding that person—and that’s a big first step.

Respect. Accepting—not just tolerating, but truly accepting—someone’s idiosyncrasies is difficult, but not nearly as challenging as respecting that person because of their idiosyncrasies.

Continuing our example, let’s say your partner experiences great joy from their collection. Why would you want to change that? You want them to be happy, right? Well, if their collection brings contentment to their life, and if you truly care about that person, then their collection should bring joy to your life, too, because happiness is contagious—but only after you get past the arguments, past the stages of tolerance, acceptance, and respect, and you honestly appreciate the other person’s desires, values, and beliefs.

Identify what’s truly necessary by identifying all of your monthly expenses based on the past six months, and then divide your expenses into three categories, as outlined in our essay, “Need, Want, Like”

“How could we make this enjoyable?” Although it was a basic question, the answer wasn’t that easy—it’s not easy to make cold rain and construction work enjoyable. So we started brainstorming as we continued hanging the siding: What if we got the kids from inside the home and asked them to help us? What if we raced to see who could hang the most siding the quickest? What if we sang aloud like a couple of idiots while we hung the siding? What if we did terrible impressions of Robert DeNiro and Christopher Walken working construction? What if we did jumping jacks in the rain every five minutes to take a break from the construction work? What if we went inside until the rain let up, made hot chocolate for everyone, and told stories to the family? Then we could get them to help us finish the siding when the rain stopped. What if, what if, what if? Within a few minutes we had over a dozen answers, most of which were quite silly. But we picked a few and gave them a shot, increasing the level of enjoyment for an otherwise mundane task. We joked, we laughed, and we had a good time. We turned a dull activity into something we enjoyed—a great day of contribution, something we won’t forget for a long time.

But it’s important to know which two areas are your current default values, because then you can focus on the other three that come less naturally.