The Minimalists talk about minimizing mental clutter caused by loved ones, consuming less of things we enjoy, embracing minimalist dietary principles that last, and more with Dr. Paul Saladino.

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Discussed in This Episode

Minimal Maxims

Joshua, Ryan, and T.K.’s pithy, shareable, less-than-140-character responses. Find more quotes from The Minimalists at MinimalMaxims.com.

• Our material possessions are a physical manifestation of our internal lives.
• Consume products, not people.
• Consumption is not the problem—consumerism is.
• Nothing tastes as good as being healthy feels.
• Gustatory pleasure is ephemeral; peace of mind is eternal.

Links Mentioned in This Episode

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We live in a world filled with empty consumeristic promises.

• To get the girl, buy this cologne.
• To be the life of the party, get this television.
• To impress your friends, buy this watch.
• To turn heads, drive this car.
• To raise a better family, buy this bigger house.

These promises bombard our senses incessantly—even within the comforts of our home. And more than we realize, these messages begin to shape our conscious and subconscious thoughts.

As a result, too often, we buy stuff we don’t need. Our closets become crowded, our drawers overfill, our garages can’t fit our cars, and our homes fill with countless products we thought were a good idea at the time; but in reality, rarely get used.

Our lives soon become buried under everything we own.

To counter these empty promises, I want to offer a simple, life-transforming question—five simple words to ask before making any purchase.

The question is this: But what if I don’t?

Whenever you feel the pull of consumerism, simply ask yourself the shortened version of this thought, “What might I be able to do if I didn’t make this purchase?”

Every purchase contains an opportunity cost. The question, “But what if I don’t?”, forces us to recognize and articulate it.

For example:

If you don’t buy that large screen television, how much debt could you pay off?

If you don’t buy the bigger house, how much more money would you have to travel?

If you don’t go clothes-shopping today, how could you build up an emergency fund?

If you don’t make this purchase on Amazon, what good could you accomplish in the world with the money instead?

You know what you’ve been promised if you buy… but what if you don’t? How would your life improve if you said ‘no?’

With every purchase we make, we sacrifice a small amount of freedom. This one, simple question helps us recognize exactly what it is.

Did you get everything on your Christmas wish list this year?

They say you should be careful what you wish for.
Because you just might get it.

The paradox of obtaining a coveted thing
is that you never desired the possession;
you desired the desire.

It is the feeling you yearned for,
not the thing itself.

The moment you possess a new possession,
the tables turn, and
that possession begins to possess you.

Every possession has the ability to dispossess.

On a relatively short timeline,
the objects of your desire
degenerate into
the objects of your discontent.

After a few months…

Your Lunya Washable Silk Robe
begins to tatter.

Your Gucci Jordaan Bit Loafers
give you blisters.

Your Moncler Virgin Wool Rib Beanie
makes your scalp itch.

Your Bottega Veneta Mini Wallace Intricate Leather Shoulder Bag
grows heavy with regret.

Your Dr. Dennis Gross DRx SpectraLite FaceWare Pro LED Light Therapy Device
runs out of batteries.

Your SMEG 2 Slice Toaster with 6 Presets and Defrost Function and Removable Crumb Tray
burns your breakfast.

Your Saint Laurent Matelassé Leather Credit Card Case
is a stark reminder of the debt you’ve accumulated this year.

Uh oh, after getting everything you wanted,
you no longer want what you wanted.
And then, when the desire is gone, you realize
it was entirely a one-way relationship—
the things you wanted never wanted you in the first place.

At last,
you don’t own your things
if your things own you.

Never underestimate the importance of removing stuff you don’t need.

Encouragement provides us with motivation. It invites us to dream dreams of significance for our lives. And it begs us to work diligently with optimism and promise.

Overcoming the pull of consumerism is a difficult challenge regardless of our stage in life. Therefore, simplicity requires encouragement. To that end, I hope you will find motivation in these articles below.

Each post was intentionally chosen to inspire simplicity in your life. For maximum effect, find a quiet moment this weekend and enjoy them with a fresh cup of coffee or tea.

Maybe This Summer Isn’t Meant to Be Magical | Our Little House in the Country by Ciara Winters. Maybe this is the summer where you stop trying to prove anything—and just allow yourself to be.

3 Principles For Living A Life Less Ordinary—Starting Now! | Forbes by Angela Cusack. Living a life less ordinary isn’t about escaping the life you have. It’s about inhabiting it more fully. It’s about choosing presence over performance, clarity over assumption and stillness over spinning.

The Quiet Freedom of Living Below Your Means | Simple Money by Harper Bennett. Living below your means isn’t about sacrifice or going without. It’s about creating space.

Guarding The Gate: How I Stay a Minimalist | No Sidebar by Justin Hall. With some proactive strategies, we can maintain and continue to reap the life-changing benefits of the minimalist life.

The Big Idea: Should We Embrace Boredom? | The Guardian by Sophie McBain. Smartphones offer instant stimulation, but do they silence a deeper message?

Recently Released Inspiring Videos

The Minimalist Life | YouTube by Joshua Becker. My intention is to take our community to the next level, where we can connect every day and share our challenges, our wins, and motivation to keep living a minimalist life. Hope to see you there!

How to Let Go of the Idea That More is Better | YouTube by Joshua Becker. We live in a world that often tells us that more is always better—more possessions, more money, more activities, more food. But when we pause to question it, we might find that the pursuit of more doesn’t always bring the satisfaction we expect. In fact, it can often lead to overwhelm and stress.

—

The Minimalist Life. If you’ve ever wanted more personal support applying minimalism to your home, habits, and schedule, I’ve just launched something new. The Minimalist Life is a private community with live coaching, weekly challenges, live events, and encouraging accountability. The founding member pricing ($18/month) ends June 30.

The Minimalists talk about communicating with people who are unwilling to change their minds, the qualities of productive conversation, finding ways to be happy without knowing your purpose, a simple approach to getting divorced, the proper way to identify a narcissist, being a minimalist when you enjoy buying new things, and much more.

Listen to the Episode

Apple · Spotify · YouTube · Patreon

Discussed in This Episode

Minimal Maxims

Joshua, Ryan, and T.K.’s pithy, shareable, less-than-140-character responses. Find more quotes from The Minimalists at MinimalMaxims.com.

• Not every disconnection requires a reconnection.
• Charity produces clarity.
• If you deeply desire to misunderstand someone, you will find a thousand ways to misinterpret them.
• You can’t maintain a campfire with an arsonist.
• Happiness without purpose is ephemeral.
• Every time you give yourself permission to be upset, you could also give yourself permission to be happy.
• Peace cannot be purchased or pursued; it can only be uncovered.
• Dopamine is the neurochemical that fuels consumerism.
• Consumerism makes you believe the lie that you are incomplete.

Links Mentioned in This Episode

Follow Our Team

Clothing clutter accumulates at the checkout line, well before it overflows your closets, hampers, and dresser drawers.

According to the EPA, the average American throws out more than 81 pounds of clothing each year, even though 95% of it could be reused or recycled.

Sounds like we are burdened by the residue of regret.
Sounds like we own more than enough.
Sounds like we don’t need more.

Yet we keep buying more: more shirts and pants and belts and shoes and dresses and shorts and jackets and wallets and purses and accessories, 85% of which will soon occupy space in a landfill.

Why are we so addicted to purchasing new clothes that will shortly become trash?

The answer involves many factors—false promises from marketers, slights of hand from advertisers, unconscious peer pressure from friends and coworkers—but the core characteristic of our overconsumption is consumerism.

Consumerism is the ideology that externalities will complete you—that buying more will somehow make your life more complete.

We believe this nonsense only because we don’t understand what enough is. So we accumulate more than enough, hoping that eventually we’ll get to the point at which our wardrobes, and thus our lives, are perfect.

And yet it doesn’t work.
Consumerism can’t complete you.
Because you are already complete.

Even when you’re standing alone in an empty closet,
dressed in the simplest attire,
you are complete.

Think about it.

Have you ever looked at a newborn and said,
This baby is incomplete
so I better buy her a bunch of new things
to perfect that imperfect little child?

Of course not.

So…

If you were complete when you were born—
when you owned zero possessions—
then at what point did you become incomplete?

You became incomplete
the moment your consumer culture
convinced you to burn yourself
with the flame of consumerism.

Thankfully, that fire
can be extinguished by
the gentle waters of simplicity.

Be it clothes, cars, or commodities, no material possession will complete you or make you happy, even though it feels like they can when you’re steeped in a retail frenzy. If anything, excess possessions cover up your happiness, which means, in a real way, new purchases don’t complete you—they incomplete you!

However, a complete life does exist—it exists on the other side of letting go, letting go of the past by donating and recycling the waste, and then letting go of the future by letting go of the stuff in advance.

You see, the simplest way to get rid of an item is to avoid bringing it home in the first place.

The perfect closet exists, but it is not located on the other side of your next purchase.

According to the Public Interest Research Group, the average American buys 53 new articles of clothing each year. That’s more than one new thing per week and four times as much as in the year 2000. Accordingly, garment manufacturers are now producing more than 100 billion pieces every year.

It’s easy to blame fast fashion for our overconsumption. Indeed, rapacious corporate greed is a part of the problem. But companies are ceaselessly churning out new attire only because we shoppers keep demanding more.

Just like everyone else, you and I yearn to be trendy. When you think about it, though, trendy is just marketing jargon that really means “soon to go out of style.”

Next time you look in the mirror, consider doing more than a ‘fit check. Consider being honest with yourself about those misplaced desires and insecurities that lead to discontent and debt and piles of cheap clothes, not a perfect closet.

As a recovering perfectionist, I know it feels like that new belt, those new shoes, that new dress will scratch your consumer itch. After all, you’re just a few outfits away from a flawless closet, right?

No.

You see, the word perfect comes from the Latin word perficere, which breaks down into per- (“completely”) and facere (“do”). In other words, perfect does not mean flawless; it means completely done.

Thus, the key to a perfect closet is not addition—it is subtraction.

The wardrobe you want won’t be crafted by acquiring more costumes. (How many years have you been sold that lie?) No, perfect is uncovered when you jettison the clutter that incompleted your closet in the first place.

So, instead of buying a new item every week, just like your fellow trendsetters, what would happen if you let go of ten old items this week?

You can start with anything you haven’t worn in the last year. Soon, you will find yourself donating everything you haven’t worn in the last 90 days.

In the end, with all the excess out of the way, all that remains are your favorite clothes. Perfect was hiding in your closet this whole time. No purchase necessary.

Your home is your sanctuary. Let’s keep it that way.

Simplicity is about creating space in your life for what matters most. It’s about clearing the clutter from our homes and hearts so we can live with intention and purpose. 

As the world gets busier and noisier, embracing simplicity and minimalism becomes even more important.

But we all need inspiration to keep us going. That’s why I carefully selected these articles for you. I hope they inspire you to continue on this beautiful journey towards a simpler life. 

Find a cozy spot, prepare your favorite drink, and immerse yourself in these thought-provoking reads this weekend.

On First Principles, Consumerism, and Why We’re All a Bit Lost | Medium by Charles Adede. Maybe fulfillment isn’t about gaining more control, but about aligning more closely with reality as it is.

The Psychology Behind Consumerism: Why Do We Buy Things We Don’t Need? | The Arabian Stories by Navida Sait. Have you ever walked into a shop intending to buy just one item but left with a basket full of things you hadn’t planned for? You’re not alone.

The Coolest People Online Are Barely Posting at All | Popsugar by Jasmine Desiree. In a world where oversharing has become the norm, a quiet counterculture is emerging: the rise of digital minimalism.

The Best Investment You Can Make: Simplifying Your Life | Simple Money by Richard James. If you want a better return on your time, energy, money, and peace of mind—start simplifying.

I Tried the 30-Day Minimalism Game and Decluttered 465 Things in One Month | Good Housekeeping by Katie Mortram. If you manage to stick to this decluttering game, it can make a big difference to all sorts of areas around the home.

8 Reasons Decluttering a Little Made a Big Difference for Me | No Sidebar by Karen Trefzger. An active life might mean that some clutter will always be entering my home.  That’s why I take a few minutes each week to remove the extras. 

Recently Released Inspiring Videos

12 Items to Declutter That Instantly Create More Space | YouTube by Joshua Becker. If your home feels cluttered and cramped, you’re not alone. By letting go of the excess, you can quickly create more room to breathe, live, and enjoy your home.

10 Money Saving Hacks Minimalists Swear By | YouTube by Joshua Becker. Whether you want to get out of debt, get ahead financially, or start giving more, saving money is always helpful. And by shifting your mindset and habits, you can break free from the cycle of overspending and find greater financial freedom.