Everything That Remains Quotes

“You can't change the people around you, but you can change the people around you.”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists

“The things you own end up owning you.”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists

“Love people, use things. The opposite doesn’t work.”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists

“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?”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists

“But even while Rome is burning, there’s somehow time for shopping at IKEA. Social imperatives are a merciless bitch. Everyone is attempting to buy what no one can sell.  See, when I moved out of the house earlier this week, trawling my many personal belongings in large bins and boxes and fifty-gallon garbage bags, my first inclination was, of course, to purchase the things I still “needed” for my new place. You know, the basics: food, hygiene products, a shower curtain, towels, a bed, and umm … oh, I need a couch and a matching leather chair and a love seat and a lamp and a desk and desk chair and another lamp for over there, and oh yeah don’t forget the sideboard that matches the desk and a dresser for the bedroom and oh I need a coffeetable and a couple end tables and a TV-stand for the TV I still need to buy, and don’t these look nice, whadda you call ’em, throat pillows? Oh, throw pillows. Well that makes more sense. And now that I think about it I’m going to want my apartment to be “my style,” you know: my own motif, so I need certain decoratives to spruce up the decor, but wait, what is my style exactly, and do these stainless-steel picture frames embody that particular style? Does this replica Matisse sketch accurately capture my edgy-but-professional vibe? Exactly how “edgy” am I? What espresso maker defines me as a man? Does the fact that I’m even asking these questions mean I lack the dangling brass pendulum that’d make me a “man’s man”? How many plates/cups/bowls/spoons should a man own? I guess I need a diningroom table too, right? And a rug for the entryway and bathroom rugs (bath mats?) and what about that one thing, that thing that’s like a rug but longer? Yeah, a runner; I need one of those, and I’m also going to need…”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists

“Truthfully, though, most organizing is nothing more than well-planned hoarding.”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists

“People often avoid the truth for fear of destroying the illusions they’ve built.”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists

“It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.’ ”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists

“Addition by subtraction.”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists

“We’re taught to work foolishly hard for a non-living entity, donating our most precious commodity—our time—for a paycheck.”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists

“Life is too short to do shit you dislike.”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists

“TV costs us a lot more than money. Time. TV viewing has robbed me of my time—my most precious asset. Even”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists

“These days, I have little desire for new material possessions (although that baleful yearning still lingers from time to time), but I do want to be successful. And success for me has little to do with money or possessions or status. Rather, success is a simple equation: Happiness + Growth + Contribution = Success. That’s the only kind of success I know. Hence, I want to partake in work that makes me happy, work that encourages me to grow, work that helps me contribute beyond myself. Ultimately, I want to create more and consume less. Doing so requires real work. Within”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists

“I know I might fail, but we all must fail from time to time—we have to figure out what doesn’t work so we can find out what does.”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists

“After a series of promotions—store manager at twenty-two, regional manager at twenty-four, director at twenty-seven—I was a fast-track career man, a personage of sorts. If I worked really hard, and if everything happened exactly like it was supposed to, then I could be a vice president by thirty-two, a senior vice president by thirty-five or forty, and a C-level executive—CFO, COO, CEO—by forty-five or fifty, followed of course by the golden parachute. I’d have it made then! I’d just have to be miserable for a few more years, to drudge through the corporate politics and bureaucracy I knew so well. Just keep climbing and don't look down. Misery, of course, encourages others to pull up a chair and stay a while. And so, five years ago, I convinced my best friend Ryan to join me on the ladder, even showed him the first rung. The ascent is exhilarating to rookies. They see limitless potential and endless possibilities, allured by the promise of bigger paychecks and sophisticated titles. What’s not to like? He too climbed the ladder, maneuvering each step with lapidary precision, becoming one of the top salespeople—and later, top sales managers—in the entire company.10 And now here we are, submerged in fluorescent light, young and ostensibly successful. A few years ago, a mentor of mine, a successful businessman named Karl, said to me, “You shouldn’t ask a man who earns twenty thousand dollars a year how to make a hundred thousand.” Perhaps this apothegm holds true for discontented men and happiness, as well. All these guys I emulate—the men I most want to be like, the VPs and executives—aren’t happy. In fact, they’re miserable.  Don’t get me wrong, they aren’t bad people, but their careers have changed them, altered them physically and emotionally: they explode with anger over insignificant inconveniences; they are overweight and out of shape; they scowl with furrowed brows and complain constantly as if the world is conspiring against them, or they feign sham optimism which fools no one; they are on their second or third or fourth(!) marriages; and they almost all seem lonely. Utterly alone in a sea of yes-men and women. Don’t even get me started on their health issues.  I’m talking serious health issues: obesity, gout, cancer, heart attacks, high blood pressure, you name it. These guys are plagued with every ailment associated with stress and anxiety. Some even wear it as a morbid badge of honor, as if it’s noble or courageous or something. A coworker, a good friend of mine on a similar trajectory, recently had his first heart attack—at age thirty.  But I’m the exception, right?”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists

“.... Sometimes the best teacher is our most recent failure.”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists

“... A home is a home for one reason: we call it home. The stuff doesn't make it your home - you do".”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists

“We all know that possessions do not equal happiness. It’s just that we’ve been told this lie for so long that we start to believe it, our hearts start to buy into it, and it begins to affect the way we live our lives.”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists

“The best way to give yourself a raise is to spend less money.”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists

“So instead of Going Viral, I focus on one thing: Adding Value. These”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists

“Heads tilt downward, faces lost in glowing screens, technology turning people into zombies.”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists

“a career is one of the most dangerous things you can have if you want to find fulfillment.”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists

“It’s kind of sad how much value I was placing in the heaps of books I owned. Obviously it was more than their real value. The real value was in the words—in the act of reading—not in the physical books themselves. There’s no value in having a room full of books you don’t need—especially when other people can get value from those books.”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists

“Reject the basic assumptions of civilization, especially the importance of material possessions,”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists

“Understand, every moth is drawn to light, even when that light is a flame, hot and burning, flickering, the fire tantalizing the drab creature with its blueish-white illumination. But when the moth flies too close to the flame, we all know what happens: it gets burned, incinerated by the very thing that drew it near. For decades now, I have played the role of the moth, lured by the flame of consumerism, pop culture’s beautiful conflagration, a firestorm of lust and greed and wanting, a haunting desire to consume that which cannot be consumed, to be fulfilled by that which can never be fulfilling. A vacant proposition, leaving me empty inside, which further fuels my desire to consume. 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.”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists

“There is more joy and fulfillment in pursuing less than can be found in pursuing more.”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists

“The first jump—that’s the most difficult part. Because you’ll always have some people who say things like, ‘Why would you do that?’ or ‘How can you do that?’ or ‘If you could do that thing you want to do—write that novel or become an entrepreneur or travel the world or whatever—then everyone would be doing it.’ It’s important to remember that these naysayers are just projecting. It’s that ingrained fear we all have, a natural instinct. We tend to be afraid of bucking the status quo. 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.”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists

“It’s a drinking town with a fishing problem.”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists

“In the past, we all wanted to be liked; now we just want to be "Liked."....”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists

“Taking time for ourselves, especially when we're overwhelmed and don't want to, helps declutter the mind. Everyone has twenty minutes a day to clear their mental clutter.”
― Joshua Fields Millburn, Everything That Remains: A Memoir by The Minimalists