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Translator: Morgane Quilfen Reviewer: Helena Bedalli
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Joshua: My name is Joshua Fields Millburn and this is Ryan Nicodemus.
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Together, we run a website called theminimalists.com
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and we promise the folks we'd kick things off this afternoon
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with something inspirational,
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(Laughter)
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something to get you all excited.
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(Cheers)
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So, I'd like to talk about something uplifting.
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(Cheers) (Laughter)
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Let's talk about death!
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If any of you are uncomfortable talking about death,
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now might be a good time for you to leave.
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(Laughter)
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I have a feeling we will be seeing him again in a minute.
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Anyway, yeah, we could talk about death.
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Let's see, seven years ago,
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I was 28 years old, and up until that point in my life,
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I had achieved everything I ever wanted:
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The six-figure salary, the luxury cars, the closets full of expensive clothes,
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the big suburban house with more toilets than people,
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and all of this stuff
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to filled every corner of my consumer-driven lifestyle.
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Man, I was living the American Dream!
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And then my mom died. And my marriage ended.
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Both in the same month.
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And these two events forced me to look around
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and start to question what had become my life's focus.
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You know what I realized?
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I realized I was so focused on so-called "success" and "achievement,"
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and especially, on the accumulation of stuff.
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Yeah, I was living the American Dream,
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but it wasn't my dream.
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And it took getting everything I thought I wanted,
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to realize that everything I ever wanted wasn't actually what I wanted at all.
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You see, just a year earlier, mom, she moved from Ohio down to Florida,
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to finally retire.
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Because that's what you do when you live in the Midwest.
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And, well a few months after she moved down there,
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she found out she had lung cancer.
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And a few months after that,
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she was gone.
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I spent a lot of time with her down in Florida that year,
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as she went through her chemo and radiation.
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And when she passed, I realized I needed to make one last trip,
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this time it was to deal with her stuff.
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So, I flew from Dayton, Ohio, down to St. Pete Beach, Florida,
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and when I arrived, I found about three apartments' worth of stuff
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crammed in a mom's tiny one-bedroom apartment.
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But don't get me wrong, it's not like mom was a hoarder,
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she wasn't.
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I mean, I didn't find any dead cats in her freezer.
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(Laughter)
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But she owned a lot of stuff.
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65 years worth of accumulation.
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Did you all know
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that the average American household has more than 300,000 items in it?
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300,000!
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But of course, most of us aren't hoarders, right?
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No, we just hold onto a lot of stuff.
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We hold onto a lifetime of collected memories.
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I know mom certainly did.
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So, I did what any good son would do --
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I think that's me on a bad hair day --
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I called U-Haul.
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I called U-Haul and I asked for the largest truck they had.
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In fact, I needed one so large,
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I had to wait an extra-day, until the 26-foot truck was available.
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And as I waited for that U-Haul to arrive,
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I invited some of mom's friends over to help me deal with her stuff.
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I mean, there was just too much stuff to go at it alone.
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Her living room was stuffed with big antique furniture,
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and old paintings,
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and more doilies than I could count.
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She loved doilies.
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And her kitchen was stuffed with hundreds of plates, and cups,
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and bowls, and ill-assorted utensils.
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And her bathroom was stuffed
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with enough hygiene products to start a small beauty supply business.
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And her linen closet,
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well, it looked like someone was running a hotel out of her linen closet,
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which was stuffed with mismatched bath towels, and beach towels,
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and bed sheets, and blankets, and quilts.
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And don't even get me started on her bedroom.
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Why did mom have 14 winter coats stuffed in her bedroom closet?
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14!
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Now, come on, she lived in St. Pete Beach, Florida!
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Suffice it to say mom owned a lot of stuff,
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and I had no idea what to do with any of it.
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So, I did what any good son would do; I rented a storage locker.
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When I called, I asked for the largest storage unit they had.
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You know what they asked me?
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"Do you want one that's climate-controlled?"
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Climate-controlled, just so mom's stuff could be comfortable?
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No, I don't want one that's climate-controlled,
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just give me a big box with a padlock on it!
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You see, I couldn't co-mingle mom's stuff with my stuff,
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I already had a big house, and a full basement full of stuff.
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But a storage locker? Oh, yeah!
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A storage locker would let me hold on to everything!
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Just in case I needed it someday, in some non-existent, hypothetical future.
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You know, just in case.
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Just. In. Case.
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The three most dangerous words in the English language.
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Anyway, so there I was, attempting to finish packing mom's stuff,
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when all of a sudden, I noticed these four boxes.
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These old printer-paper boxes.
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Kind of heavy.
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Sealed with excessive amounts of packing tape.
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So, I pulled them out one by one.
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I noticed that each box was labelled
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with just a number, written on the side, in thick, black marker.
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All I saw was: one, two,
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three, four.
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I stood there, looking down,
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wondering what could possibly be in those boxes.
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It looks like we're out of time folks. Hope you enjoy the rest of the conference!
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(Laughter)
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No, it was my old elementary school paperwork,
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grades one through four.
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You know, as I opened those boxes, my curiosity ran wild,
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and I thought to myself,
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"Why was mom holding onto all that stupid paperwork?"
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But then, all those memories came rushing back,
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and I realized she had been holding onto a piece of me,
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she was holding onto all those memories in those boxes, right?
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Wait a minute!
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Those boxes had been sealed for more than two decades,
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which made me realize something important for the first time in my life:
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Our memories are not inside our things.
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Our memories are inside us.
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See, mom didn't need to hold on to those boxes to hold on to a piece of me,
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I was never in those boxes.
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But then, I looked around at her apartment,
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I looked around at all her stuff,
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and I realized I was getting ready to do the same thing.
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Except instead of storing her memories in a box in my home,
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I was getting ready to cram it all into a big box with a padlock on it.
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So, I did what any good son would do,
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I called U-Haul and I cancelled that truck.
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And then I called and I cancelled the storage locker.
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And I spent the next 12 days selling, or donating, almost everything.
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And I learned a bunch of really important lessons along the way.
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Not only did I learn that our memories aren't in our things, they're in us;
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but I also learned about value, real value.
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You see, if I'm honest with myself,
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I was just going to selfishly cling to mom's stuff,
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but of course, I wasn't going to get any value from it,
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as it sat there, locked away in perpetuity.
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But the truth is that by letting go, I could add value to other people's lives.
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So, I donated much of her stuff to her friends, and local charities,
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giving the stuff a new home.
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And the things I was able to sell, I was able to take that money
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and give it to the charities
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that helped her through her chemo and radiation.
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And when I finally returned to Ohio,
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I returned with just a handful of sentimental items:
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an old painting, a few photographs, maybe even a doily or two.
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And the final lesson I learned, well, it was a practical one.
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While it's true that sometimes, our memories are in our things,
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it's also true that sometimes,
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the things that we have can trigger the memories
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that are inside us.
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So, while I was still in Florida,
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I took photos of many of mom's possessions.
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When I went back to Ohio,
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I went back with just a few boxes of photographs,
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which I was able to scan, and store digitally.
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And those photos made it easier for me to let go,
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because I realized I wasn't letting go of any of my memories.
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Ultimately, I had to let go of what was weighing me down
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before I was able to move on,
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and to move on, well, I had to look in the mirror,
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and take an inventory of my own life.
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It turns out I had an organized life,
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but really, I was just a well-organized hoarder.
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I mean, everything looked great, sure, but it was just a facade,
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and I knew I needed to simplify things.
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That's where this beautiful thing called "minimalism" entered my life.
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For me, it all started with one question:
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How might your life be better with less?
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You see, by answering this question,
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I was able to understand the purpose of minimalism,
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not just the how-to, but the why-to.
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I learned that if I simplified my life, I'd have time for my health,
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for my relationships, my finances, my passions,
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and I could contribute beyond myself in a meaningful way.
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See, I was able to understand the benefits of minimalism
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well before I ever cleaned out a walk-in closet.
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And so, when it came time for me to actually declutter my life,
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I started small, I asked myself another question:
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What if you remove one material possession from your life each day, for a month?
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Just one. What would happen?
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The end result:
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Well, I unloaded way more than 30 items in the first 30 days,
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like way, way more.
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It became this kind of personal challenge, discovering what I could get rid of,
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so I searched my rooms and closets, cabinets and hallways, car and office,
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rummaging for items to part with,
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retaining only the things that added value to my life,
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pondering each artifact in my home,
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I'd ask, "Does this thing add value to my life?"
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The more I asked this question, the more I gained momentum.
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And embracing minimalism got easier by the day.
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I mean, the more you do it, the freer, and happier, and lighter you feel,
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and the more you want to throw overboard.
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For me, a few shirts led to half a closet,
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a few DVDs led to deep-sixing almost an entire library of discs.
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A few decorative items led to junk drawers who shed their adjective;
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it's a beautiful cycle.
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I mean, the more action you take, the more you want to take action.
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Ultimately though, the purpose of minimalism
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has to do with the benefits we experience
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once we're on the other side of decluttering.
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Hence, removing the clutter is not the end result,
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it is merely the first step.
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I mean, it's possible to go home,
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get rid of everything you own and be absolutely miserable,
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to come home to an empty house and sulk, after removing all your pacifiers.
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Because consumption is not the problem.
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Compulsory consumption is the problem.
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And we can change that
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by being more deliberate with the decisions we make each day.
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Over the course of eight months, I deliberately jettisoned
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more than 90 per cent of my material possessions.
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Although, if you visited my home today, you probably wouldn't walk in and yell,
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"Oh my God! This guy is a minimalist!"
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No. You'd probably just say, "Wow, he's tidy."
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You'd ask how I keep things so organized,
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and I'd simply grin and tell you that I don't own much,
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but everything I do own adds real value to my life.
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Each of my belongings, my car, my clothes, my kitchenware, my furniture,
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has a function.
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As a minimalist, every possession serves a purpose or brings me joy,
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and everything else is out of the way.
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With the clutter cleared, I felt compelled to start asking deeper questions,
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questions like:
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Why did I give so much meaning to my stuff?
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What is truly important in my life?
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When did I become so discontented?
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Who is the person I want to become?
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And how am I going to define my own success?
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These are tough questions, with difficult answers,
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but they've proven to be much more important
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than just trashing my excess stuff.
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And if we don't answer these questions carefully, rigorously,
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then the closet we just decluttered will be brimming with new purchases
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in the not too distant future.
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So, as I let go, and as I started facing life's tougher questions,
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things got simpler,
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and the people around me noticed something was different too.
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People at work started saying things like,
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"You seem less stressed!" "You seem so much calmer!"
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"What is going on? You seem so much nicer!"
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And then my best friend, a guy named Ryan Nicodemus,
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whom I've known since we were fat little fifth graders,
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he came to me one day, and he said he noticed how happy I was.
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And that opened him up in time
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to the concepts of minimalism and living a meaningful life with less.
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As he simplified his life, that made room for these deeper conversations,
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conversations about how our unchecked consumption
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wasn't just affecting our lives, it was infecting our entire society.
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Ryan: You see, the more we consume, the more waste we produce.
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But then of course, the opposite is also true.
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If we consume less stuff, we produce less waste.
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As you all might know,
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if the entire world consumed like the United States,
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we would need over four Earths to maintain our unchecked consumption.
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How can we, as consumer-driven Americans, keep consuming like this?
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It's pretty simple; we go deeper into debt!
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That's how.
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Did you know the average American carries four credit cards in their wallet?
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And one in ten Americans has ten or more active credit cards.
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And the average credit card debt is over $16,000.
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The total consumer debt of the United States
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is nearly 12 trillion dollars.
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12 trillion dollars!
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Let me just put that into perspective for a minute.
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If you went out and spent one dollar every single second,
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it would take you more than 31,000 years to spend a trillion dollars.
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In fact, if you went out and spent a million dollars a day,
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ever since the birth of the Buddha,
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you still wouldn't have spent a trillion dollars by now.
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And we have nearly 12 trillion dollars in debt.
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And the only way out is to let go.
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When we let go, our actions, it encourages others to let go, too.
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Six years ago, Josh and I, we let go of our stuff,
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so we could start living a life that aligned with our values.
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We started consuming less, so we could start living more.
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And when our lives became our message,
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we started a blog, so we could share that message with others.
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We called it "theminimalists.com."
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Since then, we've written books about simple living,
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we started a podcast about intentionality,
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and we released a documentary called "Minimalism."
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All in an effort to add value to other people's lives.
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And that's really why we're here today,
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we really, really hope
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that we can add value to all of your lives.
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So, if you leave here with just one message,
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we really hope it's this:
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Love people and use things, because the opposite never works.
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(Applause)
