Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists

by Joshua Fields Millburn

It seems we don’t know how to love the ones we love until they disappear from our lives.

If she were here, she’d probably tell me she was holding on to a piece of me in the boxes. But how? I was never in these boxes. I didn’t even know they existed until this moment. And yet she thought she could keep a piece of me—memories of me—by keeping these things. This thought infuriates me. Our memories are not in our things. Our memories are in us.

First, consumerism represented all the things I wanted but was too poor to afford as a kid: the video games, the logo’d clothes, the nice car. But when I began to acquire these things, my thirst was not quenched.

The items themselves are not the problem. The real problem is me.

the act of ownership is what stressed me out, kept me from feeling free.”

the act of taking care of my things, fixing broken items, replacing stuff that needs to be replaced, and of course protecting my personal property so that no one takes it from me. A lot of work goes into simply acquiring and maintaining my myriad possessions. It weighs on me.

helped me free myself from the chains of consumerism.”

Minimalism has allowed me to eliminate the other distractions from my life, things that, when you step back and look at the big picture, just don’t matter as much as we think they do.”

But when you do take that first jump, it actually becomes terrifying to do ‘normal’ things, because you realize what a risk it is to give up your entire life just to be normal.”

“There is more joy and fulfillment in pursuing less than can be found in pursuing more.”

literary texts are the only creations that impart an exchange of consciousness between author and audience, conveying raw emotion and internal feeling far better than Hollywood movies or trendy apps or even great music.

most things in life aren’t innate. What I’ve learned from a decade in the corporate world is that individual betterment has little to do with inbred talent.

Progress requires practice and dedication and, to a certain extent, a healthy obsession. Hence, passion is a mixture of love and obsession.

I haven’t made writing a must. Instead it’s been a gigantic should in my life. I should write, I frequently remind myself. I should, I should, I should. I’ve said it more times than I can count—just shoulding all over myself.

for many years, I’ve confused passion with excitement

Excitement comes and goes; it wanes when times get hard, when the work gets tough, when creative flow turns into drudgery. True passion, however, arises after you’ve put in the long hours necessary to become a skilled craftsman, a skillset you can then leverage to have an impact, to gain autonomy and respect, to shape and control your destiny. Thus, passion isn’t followed, it’s cultivated.

For any dimension of life, for any skillset—be it exercise, ballroom dancing, or writing—a person must be willing to drudge through the drudgery to find the joy on the other side.

there is no long-term reward for passive pliancy, just a beer gut and an empty existence,

I must sometimes tolerate the pain if I want to pursue real pleasure. It’ll take time and discipline and prioritization. Real prioritization, not lip-service.

My priorities are what I do each day,

Does this thing add value to my life?

decluttering by itself doesn’t solve the problem,

Discussing how to get rid of our stuff answers only the what side of the equation, but not the why; the action, but not the purpose; the how-to, but not the significantly more important why-to.

Truthfully, though, most organizing is nothing more than well-planned hoarding.

No matter how organized we are, we must continue to care for the stuff we organize, sorting and cleaning our meticulously structured belongings.

Once the excess stuff is out of the way, staying organized is much easier anyway; it’s like getting organized without the stress of actual organizing.26

When did I give so much meaning to material possessions? What is truly important in life? Why am I discontented? Who is the person I want to become? How will I define my own success?

I’m forced to ask the same important question over and over again: Does this thing add value to my life?

I ask it too in regard to relationships, Internet consumption, food, and any other potentially superfluous matters.

Accepting the flame for what it is, then, is important: it is necessary and beautiful and, most of all, dangerous. Realizing this, becoming aware of the danger, is difficult to do. But this is how we wake up.

20/20 Theory: basically, anything I jettison can be replaced for less than twenty dollars, in less than twenty minutes from my current location—if I discover I truly need to replace it.

when I remove the just-in-case items from my life, I free up the space they consume—the physical and mental spaces they occupy.

“Your anchors kept you from leading the life you wanted?”

Material possessions were the most obvious anchors, a sort of physical manifestation of what was holding me back. But also things like my mortgage, my car payment, most of my bills, and all my debt. Massive, terrible debt.

If someone is doing nothing but draining your life, it’s perfectly acceptable to tell them, ‘This relationship is no longer right for me, so I must end it—I must move on.’

being good at something doesn’t mean it aligns with my values.

‘I’m passionate about writing.’ and then follow-up that statement with, ‘What are you passionate about?’

your life should be your real identity—all the things that interest you, not how you earn a paycheck.”

“Now, before I spend money I ask myself one question: Is this worth my freedom? Like: Is this coffee worth two dollars of my freedom? Is this shirt worth thirty dollars of my freedom? Is this car worth thirty thousand dollars of my freedom? In other words, am I going to get more value from the thing I’m about to purchase, or am I going to get more value from my freedom?

The best way to give yourself a raise is to spend less money. These days I know that every dollar I spend adds immense value to my life. There is a roof over my head at night, the books or the music I purchase add unspeakable value to my life, the few clothes I own keep me warm, the experiences I share with others at a movie or a concert add value to my life and theirs, and a meal from China Garden with my best friend becomes far more meaningful than a trip to the mall ever could.”

“As kids we used to ask it all the time, right? What if we had a treehouse? What if we had a trampoline? What if we could fly?”

“We always asked What if? with so much optimism, but now the only time we seem to ask it is out of fear.”

Real security, however, is found inside us, in consistent personal growth, not in a reliance on growing external factors.

That’s not to say there’s anything inherently wrong with working a job; we all have to keep the lights on. But when we travel too far from living a deliberate life (venturing off the path as I have)—and when we stop asking meaningful questions (ditto)—we stop feeling fulfilled.

Once we are able to associate enough pain with the flame, we gain enough leverage to make a change.