Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists

by Joshua Fields Millburn

On call like doctors, fumbling through emails and texts and phone calls on the go, tethered to our technology. But unlike doctors, we’re not saving anyone. Hell, we can’t even save ourselves.

the American Dream really just seems to imply that we are fat and in debt, discontented and empty, every man an island, leaving a void we attempt to fill with more stuff.

we were always living paycheck to paycheck, always knowing that with just one lost job or one major housing expense or one medical emergency, our lives would be completely thrown into shambles.

I haven’t written all that much, more aspiring than perspiring, as it were.

I should, I should, I should. I’ve said it more times than I can count—just shoulding all over myself.

we assume that passion feels like excitement—that passion is inherently exciting—but that assumption is usually wrong. You see, it’s easy to get briefly excited about something—an idea, a project, a potential promotion—and think that means we’re passionate about it too. But this sensation of excitement is different from the type of deep passion that drives and fulfills people long term.

Careers are dangerous because people invest so much of themselves into their careers that they establish an identity and a social status based upon where they work and what they do for a living.