The Disease of More: Why You Feel Unhappy, Lost, Addicted & Stressed | Joshua Fields Milburn

1. 0:00 – 1:06

   The “void” behind overconsumption: why more stuff never fixes emptiness

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:00

      Why is it that so many of us are drowning in so much stuff?

   2. JMJoshua Fields Milburn0:05

      I think there's a, a bunch of reasons. Quite often there's an emptiness, and it kind of starts there, uh, where we say, "I-- there's this void in my life. I need to fill it with something." That pres- presupposes it needs to be filled, and we could talk about that as well. I, I have some issues with that. Maybe there's a lack that is necessary as part of, of being a human. A- a- and yet there's this void, and we can fill it with relationships, sex, drugs, food, but also we fill it with stuff, or at least we try to. Unfortunately, it doesn't work. The, that void just widens, and so we end up in tremendous amounts of debt. At, at my nadir, I had, uh, about a half a million dollars worth of debt, and I had a lot of stuff. Yeah, the average American household has about three hundred thousand items in it, and I don't think that's inherently wrong or, or evil or bad. It's just that the stuff isn't making us happy. It'd be great if all of the material possessions and the super abundance was making us joyous and, and, uh,

2. 1:06 – 3:18

   Consumerism vs consumption: counting-based happiness and the chase for “more”

   1. JMJoshua Fields Milburn1:06

      brought us to a point of perpetual bliss. But I think it's a misunderstanding of consumption. Now, I'm not against consumption. We all need to consume some things. The problem I have is with consumerism. Consumerism is the ideology that acquiring more, usually more stuff in this case, is going to make you happy. It's as if externalities have the happiness embedded in them. The paradox of that, or maybe the irony of it, is there's a happiness that's inside us. You look at a baby, and they're just cooing and smiling.

   2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:37

      Yeah.

   3. JMJoshua Fields Milburn1:37

      They don't need a, uh, BMW or a Rolls-Royce or a Prada belt to make them happy, right? They, they... It's preexisting. And the unfortunate thing is we actually tend to cover up that happiness with those externalities, and it's easiest with the stuff. The Greek have-- The Greek, ancient Greeks have this wonderful word, pleonexia, and loosely translated, it, it stands for the greed for the things that can be counted, right? And our society now has more things that can be counted and measured than ever before.

   4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:13

      Mm-hmm.

   5. JMJoshua Fields Milburn2:13

      We have obsessions with square footage. How many square feet is your house? How many material possessions do you own? How much money is in your bank account? And now, of course, with all the digital clutter, it's what's going on with your followers. How many likes do you have? How many views are you getting? And it's this constant chase.

   6. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:33

      Mm-hmm.

   7. JMJoshua Fields Milburn2:33

      In fact, in America, it's even in our founding documents, right? You have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But the pursuit of happiness is actually the problem.

   8. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:43

      Yeah.

   9. JMJoshua Fields Milburn2:43

      There's nothing wrong with pursuing, and we can pursue happily, but it's almost like the equation is inverted there. And so we're trying to find some happy endpoint, and then we make a contract with ourselves that say, "I, I'm going to be discontent until I reach whatever that thing that can be counted is." I have a million dollars in the bank. I have the promotion I've always wanted. I have the relationship I want, or I have all of the material possessions. I really desire that thing, whatever it is. But of course, we never actually desire the thing, and I think that's the problem. We think like-

3. 3:18 – 8:10

   Identity costumes and the “unmeasurables” that shape a meaningful life

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee3:18

      Right

   2. JMJoshua Fields Milburn3:18

      ... okay, do you want those new Chrome Heart jeans? Okay, may- maybe. I, maybe they're a work of art, and maybe they're wonderful. Maybe they fit you well. Maybe you've budgeted for them. All that's fine. You can have a pair of jeans. I'm not against the stuff. But I also know the stuff isn't going to complete me. In fact, in many ways, the stuff incompletes us because it makes us-- We adorn ourselves with things, the cars, the houses, the closets, the walk-in closets full of designer clothes. All of these things, we adorn ourselves with those things as if it's part of our identity. Um, the first big book that Minimalists ever did was called Everything That Remains. It came out twelve years ago now. And, uh, the opening line to that is, "Our identities are shaped by the costumes we wear." And I was really talking about me in the corporate world at that point. That was a story of the five-year journey of me sort of walking away from the corporate world that I was in. I was managing a hundred and fifty retail stores, and my life looked successful because I had all those things you could count-

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee4:20

      Yeah

   4. JMJoshua Fields Milburn4:20

      ... that we talked about before. But I also had a bunch of other things that you couldn't count, the things that are hard to quantify. And a meaningful life is often shaped by those unquantifiables.

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee4:30

      Yeah.

   6. JMJoshua Fields Milburn4:30

      By-- 'cause I don't have a, a square footage of joy, right? How many yards of happiness are in your life? Or I guess you'd say meters, right? How many meters of pleasure or whatever it is, excitement, uh, of contentment. But also, like, the things that make humanity humane, right? Like grief, sadness, sorrow. These are all parts of, of the everyday human experience, and there isn't necessarily a measuring stick for those things. And so because that's difficult, we search for the, the easy things, the things that can be counted.

   7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee5:04

      Yeah. I think this is one of the reasons I love your work so much. It really resonates with me, and I, I think I share similar philosophies in terms of how I see the world. For many years, I've been saying that the unmeasurables in life is where the gold is.

   8. JMJoshua Fields Milburn5:21

      Mm-hmm.

   9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee5:22

      I have, like you, a lot of these societal ticks of success, right? If you look on the outside. But the things that bring me true contentment are things that the public can't see. You know, my eighteen-year relationship with my wife. Now, even saying an eighteen-year relationship, I'm, I'm, I'm kind of trying to give you a measurement there. That doesn't even tell you-

   10. JMJoshua Fields Milburn5:43

       Right

   11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee5:43

       ... the quality of my relationship-

   12. JMJoshua Fields Milburn5:45

       No

   13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee5:45

       ... with my wife. It just says that we signed a contract to be husband and wife eighteen years ago-

   14. JMJoshua Fields Milburn5:50

       [laughs] Yes

   15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee5:50

       ... and we're still in that contract. But-

   16. JMJoshua Fields Milburn5:53

       [laughs]

   17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee5:53

       ... I can tell you we have a fantastic relationship and, you know, we're talking before, I spend a load of time with my two kids, so I very consciously... will say no to so many things that might give me more, in inverted commas, success, because I understand having made poor decisions early on in my life that every single thing in life comes at a cost, right? So if you're doing something, you're not doing something else.

   18. JMJoshua Fields Milburn6:22

       Yeah.

   19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee6:22

       And I think for me, Joshua, as a doctor, I'm not sure if you've spoken to many, um, any doctors about minimalism. I'd be interested if you have. What's really interesting to me is that I believe that the biggest disease in society is not cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's disease, strokes, autoimmune disease. The biggest disease in society is the disease of more.

   20. JMJoshua Fields Milburn6:49

       Yeah.

   21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee6:49

       Because it's that desire for more that drives people to do more than they can physically do, and that's what gets them sick. So I can tell someone, "Hey, listen, I think you need to reduce your stress levels," right? I think that's making you sick. But even that's downstream. This desire to get that better promotion, the corner office, the better job, you know, the nicer car. It's that desire that underpins it all, which means of course they're going to overwork because they think they need that in order to be happy. So I think what you guys do is absolutely related to health and wellbeing.

   22. JMJoshua Fields Milburn7:27

       Yeah. It w- without a doubt. And in fact, the, the irony of it, whether you're talking about just something as simple as diet, it's much more about what we remove from what we're eating in order to become healthy than what we eat, right?

   23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee7:40

       Agreed.

   24. JMJoshua Fields Milburn7:40

       Because if, if we are consuming a bunch of processed nonsense, you know, it's not even food, it's food-like products. Um, and it, it will sustain you for a while, right? And, and if, I guess if you're starving to death, those things make a whole lot of sense. But for the average person, it's empty calories. And as a metaphor, we have empty calories all throughout our lives. This sort of ephemerality of our relationships and our things. And in that first

4. 8:10 – 11:11

   Minimalism as intentionality: throwaway culture, “leave it on the shelf,” and inverted consumerism

   1. JMJoshua Fields Milburn8:10

      documentary you mentioned, Minimalism, um, we put it up on YouTube a couple of years ago after we got the license back from Netflix, and, uh, it opened it up to a whole other world of, you know, a different audience, which was brilliant. And there's a woman in there who's a professor, uh, her name is, uh, Juliet Schor, and she talks in there, the problem isn't that we're too materialist, the problem is we're not materialist enough. And I thought that was an interesting reframing when you think about it. We don't care about the things that we create or make, uh, uh, or buy or consume or own. It has become a bit of a, a throwaway culture. And I think sometimes people get confused and think minimalism is simply about getting rid of all of your things and living like an ascetic or a monk, and I have no problem with ascetics or monks. I, I really admire that. But for me, the question is, how can I live in this world by being intentional with the decisions about the things that I hold onto? What are the things that add value to my life? And then also, what are the things that I'm going to bring in in the future? Because the, the best way to sort of declutter is to let go of the thing in advance. Leave it on the shelf. The most sustainable product is the product that we leave at the store.

   2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee9:24

      [laughs]

   3. JMJoshua Fields Milburn9:24

      And, and so [laughs] uh, of- often we get into that mindset of like, can I buy the most sustainable thing? And it's like, well, that... then it becomes another type of consumerism. And I would say there's even an inverted consumerism when you first stumble into some concept like minimalism or simple living or whatever you want to call it, essentialism, enough-ism. Uh, y- we often think like, okay, this is at least what happened to me. At first, I was buying all of the things throughout my twenties because I grew up really poor. I didn't have a whole lot. So of course, happiness must be in the things. And I get all the things and, uh, that doesn't work. Uh, I guess I need more things. What you just talked about, the disease of more. More, more, more, more. I need more. And then I get more, and I get more, and I get more until, uh, my whole house is teeming with stuff, my attic, my basement, and then I have a storage locker, my guest bedroom, my garage. I can't even park my car in the garage because I have a lot of nice things and they're, uh, they're organized. There's an ordinal system of bins and boxes and... But it's a lot of stuff. It's clutter. Anything that gets in the way is clutter. And so it's like, oh, crap, you know what? This, uh, this stuff didn't do it. The more didn't do it. I guess I bought the wrong stuff. Maybe it's not the Lexus that'll do it for me, it's the Range Rover that will do it for me. And so, uh, it's not the stuff, it's the wrong stuff. I just need to get the right stuff. That's going to make me happy. And this is all consumerism. Finally, I'm gonna reach some point where I'm fulfilled, where I'm satisfied. And those are two different things. You'll get satisfied in the moment. You eat a really good meal, you can feel satisfied by it, but ultimately, you're gonna be hungry again. And consumerism sort of works the same way. I can feel that burst of, of satisfaction that doesn't last far past the checkout line.

   4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee11:11

      Yeah.

5. 11:11 – 13:01

   Spaciousness vs “void”: why decluttering creates room for experience

   1. JMJoshua Fields Milburn11:11

      And so we get all the more, we get all the right things after we've bought the wrong things, and it still doesn't do it for us. And then we reach this point like, I need to get rid of this stuff. You know what's gonna make me happy? Minimalism. Getting rid of the stuff is gonna make me happy. And it's like, well, no. That's also not the point. The, the point of, of simplifying our lives or minimizing is making space. Going back to that thing we used to call a void. I've got this void in my life. No, it's not a void. Maybe it's just spaciousness. And maybe minimalism is the amplification of spaciousness. You don't go to a beautiful museum, the LACMA down the street here in West Hollywood, um, you don't go to the LACMA and say, "Oh, wow, like, w- why is this place so empty," right? Like, we need to put more paintings here, right? What if we stack paintings in the middle of the floor and we just brought racks of, of art in here? No, that would be clutter. It would get in the way of the experience.I used to live in Montana here in America, and it's beautiful. You go to Glacier National Park, and it's so open and spacious, and I don't go there and say, "We really need to fill this with condominiums." And it's because it doesn't need more. There's already enough. And I think we- as soon as we real- realize that with our own lives, like, I already have enough. In fact, enough is often buried underneath all of the accumulations-

   2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee12:28

      Yeah

   3. JMJoshua Fields Milburn12:28

      ... of the last several years or decades.

   4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee12:30

      Yeah. It, it's like, as you say, about happiness, I agree with you that happiness is our default state. The, the child already is happy and mindful and present. They get conditioned out of that by society and culture. It's the same thing with being enough, right? We're born knowing that we are enough, that we don't need to achieve in order to be worthy of our presence in the world. But society, culture, education starts to give us this idea that it's about achievement. You have to

6. 13:01 – 18:25

   Evolutionary lens: tribe, contribution, and “identity clutter” in modern life

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee13:01

      tick this box, and when you do this, you will be worthy of X, Y, and Z, right? So it's, it's kind of super interesting, and anything to do with health and wellbeing, I, I, like many people, try and look at it through an evolutionary lens and go, "Well, how did this make sense 100,000 years ago?" Or-

   2. JMJoshua Fields Milburn13:20

      Right

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee13:20

      ... "What was the purpose of this?" And if you think about human existence, I don't know, 50,000 years ago, hunter-gatherer tribes, I'm guessing it would've physically been impossible to accumulate stuff, right? You would have to live in harmony with the natural worlds. In fact, there's a tribe, I think they're called the, is it the Johansi tribe? I think they talk about this idea that they never overconsume. It would-

   4. JMJoshua Fields Milburn13:51

      Yeah

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee13:51

      ... almost be the, you know, they, they can't, they can't really understand the concept of overconsuming. They know that nature will always provide what they need.

   6. JMJoshua Fields Milburn14:00

      Right.

   7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee14:00

      So they just take what they need and trust that nature will continue to provide for them. But we don't live like that. You said, what was it? Three... Was it 300,000 items you said?

   8. JMJoshua Fields Milburn14:11

      [chuckles] That's right. And, and by the way, that- that's not me counting. That's according to The Los Angeles Times, and I've been on tour in your neck of the woods, and our American dream has permeated your borders and Australia, Europe, Africa, Asia. There's nowhere in the world now where they're not also striving for the so-called American dream of excess.

   9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee14:32

      Yeah. But you physically could not have done it in the past. And, and I think there's a couple of layers to that for me, Joshua, if I think about it. We're talking about this idea that if there's a lack within us somewhere, a hole within us, that we will often look to things or consuming things like social media to fill that hole. But if we go back to 50,000 years ago then, I imagine, well, did human beings back then also have this sense of lack, or was their life fundamentally different? You guys, you and your other fellow minimalists talk about-

   10. JMJoshua Fields Milburn15:13

       Yeah

   11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee15:13

       ... you know, a focus on contribution over consumption.

   12. JMJoshua Fields Milburn15:18

       Yeah.

   13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee15:18

       And I imagine life 50,000 years ago had contribution at its very heart. You know-

   14. JMJoshua Fields Milburn15:25

       Yeah

   15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee15:25

       ... you were in these small tribes. People would see the value that you provided to the people around you, and if you weren't providing that value, I'm sure someone would've had a word. "Hey, hey guys, look, you know, these tubes aren't gonna dig themselves. Come on. This is your job to do it."

   16. JMJoshua Fields Milburn15:40

       Yeah.

   17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee15:40

       And maybe the fact that that sense of value, I think, has gone from many of us. You know, we live these isolated lives. We've moved away from our tribes and our families, often for work opportunities, so we don't get that sense of value. And I believe that one of the reasons so many of us are this busy is because we are desperately looking to show ourselves that we're important. We have value. Do you know what I mean?

   18. JMJoshua Fields Milburn16:08

       [chuckles] Yeah.

   19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee16:08

       I f- I feel it's all linked together. So maybe, maybe in the past, they, they couldn't consume this much because Amazon didn't exist and all this cheap labor didn't exist.

   20. JMJoshua Fields Milburn16:18

       Right.

   21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee16:18

       And maybe they also didn't even have a need to consume or overly consume in the way that we do.

   22. JMJoshua Fields Milburn16:25

       Yes. It also wasn't disentangled from consumption or from f- consumption was not disentangled from creativity and contribution. It's sort of like a, a three-legged table. Which table, which leg is the most important leg on that table? It's like they're all equally important. It's what supports whatever's on top of it. And you go back to, you look at hunter-gatherers now, whether it's the, um, Hadza or, or tribes like the Maasai-

   23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee16:48

       Wow

   24. JMJoshua Fields Milburn16:48

       ... and, and y- you look at, at them, and it's, uh, there's a harmony around those three things. Every consumer act, uh, in terms of, like, consumption, is a creative act, and there's also contribution embedded into all of that. And so, um, it's only in the modern sort of Western world where we've, we've separated those things, and we've tried to put them in separate corners of the room. I'm sure you see this in the medical world now. It's like your brain is here in one corner of the room, and your body is in the other corner of the room. That's how we treat it. Or, y- uh, we even get specialized and, like, you go to the kidney doctor if you have a problem with your kidney-

   25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee17:25

       Yeah

   26. JMJoshua Fields Milburn17:25

       ... or you go to the, the, uh, you know, the, the near, uh, ear, nose, and throat doctor if you have a, a, a sore throat or whatever, and then you realize, like, oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. It's all, it's all connected. And the problem that you're identifying there is actually what I would call identity clutter. When we've said that, well, I, I'm this separate thing, separate from the system, separate from my neighbors. And I'm gonna go down a, a, a, a tangent here that's gonna seem very non-dual, but, like, uh, a- and maybe it is to some extent, but maybe we've just separated ourselves so much we don't realize where the stuff comes from, and that's why it's so easy to... You know, the average American throws out 88 pounds of clothing a year, even though 95% of it could be reused or recycled. And, and so you realize, like, oh, we already have, uh, more than enough of that a- a- a- and too much is never enough.Too much is always too much. It's a tautology,

7. 18:25 – 21:53

   “What do you do?” as a dangerous identity question—and replacing it with passion

   1. JMJoshua Fields Milburn18:25

      I know, but, but it, it means that, like, we're not going to find enough by acquiring more. And so what we often try to do is change our identity. I'm the type of person who drives this type of car. I'm the type of person who owns this kind of watch. I'm the type of person who wears this suit or this dress. I'm the type of person who has this type of purse, right? In fact, the first question when you meet someone, I don't think it's intentionally, uh, pernicious or malicious, but, uh, the first question you ask them is what?

   2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee19:00

      What's your job? What do you do?

   3. JMJoshua Fields Milburn19:02

      Yeah. What do you do, right? Life's most dangerous question, and I don't think it's a, a gotcha question. But when you step back and think about it, what am I really asking when I say that? Well, I guess it depends on the context, but quite often, especially when I was back in the corporate world, if I was at a networking event or something, I would say, "What do you do?" And what I really meant by that is, "Tell me what you-- where you work, what's your job title, so I can compare you to me on the socioeconomic ladder, so I can determine how much of my attention you deserve." Now, if I were to say it that way, you would think I was insane, and you'd ask me to leave immediately, right? And so instead we say, "What do you do?" And my last year in the corporate world, I had to change that question, and also my, my answer to the question as well. But I used to, instead of saying, "What do you do?" I'd say, "Hey, what are you passionate about?" And sometimes people tell me the, what their job and their job title was, right? But we get so wrapped up in that what's printed on my business card or what's in my X-bio-

   4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee19:59

      Yeah

   5. JMJoshua Fields Milburn19:59

      ... or on Instagram. Like, uh, like that's who I am as a person. And these things are great as labels, right? Back in my, in the corporate days, I was the director of operations for 150 retail stores for a telecom company in the Midwest. Fine as a label. That's great for communicating. Or if today, if I tell you I'm a minimalist, that's not part of my identity. It's just an interesting label so we can talk about things. And so I, instead of saying, "What do you do?" I'd say, "What are you passionate about?" And sometimes people say, "I'm really passionate about snowboarding." Wow, okay. I'm not asking, do you make money from snowboarding?

   6. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee20:31

      Mm-hmm.

   7. JMJoshua Fields Milburn20:31

      But now all of a sudden I see your eyes light up and you're like, "Oh, yeah, tell me more about that," because I can see the passion there. When someone would ask me like, "Okay, Josh, what do you do?" I'd say, "I'm really passionate about writing." And they're like, "Oh, have you, have you published any books or have you written anything that I would have read?" I was-- I would hope not, uh, unless you've read my diary or something, because I hadn't published anything at the time. I wrote all throughout my twenties. I wrote fiction mostly, and it was the thing that I was most passionate about. And eventually that transitioned into Ryan and I writing about this whole minimalism thing, and it's because it was something that I enjoyed doing. It was a creative act, but also it's a consumptive act. Like, I'm consuming other written works, but it's also an act of contribution as well. Ideally, if I write something that adds enough value, then people tend to share it with other people, and it just amplifies what we're doing. And so that identity clutter has been wa- I think the most difficult thing for most people because-

   8. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee21:30

      Mm

   9. JMJoshua Fields Milburn21:31

      ... if I get rid of my stuff, who am I as a person? If I no longer dress this way, who am I? If I no longer have this job, who am I? If I'm no longer in this relationship, who am I as a human being? And so often we don't let go, not because of the thing. We'll hold on to something that makes us miserable just because we're terrified-

   10. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee21:50

       Yeah

   11. JMJoshua Fields Milburn21:50

       ... of losing that identity.

8. 21:53 – 24:22

   Dropping identities: ego, labels, and choosing verbs over nouns

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee21:53

      You said that your identity is not that of a minimalist.

   2. JMJoshua Fields Milburn21:57

      Mm.

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee21:57

      So how do you, at this stage in your life, define your identity?

   4. JMJoshua Fields Milburn22:03

      Yeah. You know, it, it's interesting. I-- I-if you ask me, "Who are you?" The only person I know who has a great answer to this question was Alan Watts. And, uh, he said, uh, "You are an aperture through which the universe looks at itself." And [laughs] I think ultimately every identity is a false identity. It's just a product of the ego, and I'm not saying ego as in arrogance. I'm just saying the, the false self. Uh, the-- And we all get caught up in it, right? And, and, well, not babies. You were just talking about that earlier.

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee22:36

      Mm-hmm.

   6. JMJoshua Fields Milburn22:36

      Like, they're, they know they're enough because they're not a separate self with a separate identity yet.

   7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee22:41

      Yeah.

   8. JMJoshua Fields Milburn22:41

      And so anytime I pick up an identity, I ki-kind of just scrutinize and say, "Oh, that's interesting. What a, what a fun little label. I think I can set that down now." Because it's, it's pretty heavy to like, if you're carrying, uh, you were talking about the hunter-gatherers ear-earlier. The reason they couldn't overconsume or have all the excess is like, if-- even if you have a backpack on your back and you fill it with too much stuff, it's overwhelming. It weighs you down. I think metaphorically that is also true with our identity. And so I look at those things as labels and, and they're useful as labels as long as they're useful. The problem is we hold on to an identity even when it no longer serves us.

   9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee23:20

      Mm.

   10. JMJoshua Fields Milburn23:20

       I have a friend who is a super talented musician, but he stopped playing music for about a decade, but held on to his instruments and his studio equipment and all of these things because, "I am a musician."

   11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee23:33

       Mm.

   12. JMJoshua Fields Milburn23:34

       It's like, but you're not playing any music, is what he eventually told himself. He looked-- had to look in the mirror and say, "Yeah, that identity isn't serving me anymore. I really used to enjoy playing music." Here's the irony of it. Once he got rid of that, he got rid of the stuff, and he eventually went out and bought another guitar, and he started playing songs again-

   13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee23:51

       Yeah

   14. JMJoshua Fields Milburn23:51

       ... because he was able to drop the identity. I, I teach a writing class, uh, two or three times a year. It's called How to Write Better, and I teach a hundred students at a time, and one of the things I, I talk to them about is I'm much more interested in the verb than I am the noun. I don't care about being a writer. I care about writing. A-and so I, I, I find that that is much more useful for me. What am I doing with this moment is more useful than, um, the identity I've draped over myself.

9. 24:22 – 32:30

   Inside-out vs outside-in decluttering: boundaries, rules, and emotional drivers

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee24:22

      Yeah.Going back to this idea, Josh, that external clutter is a representation of internal clutter.

   2. JMJoshua Fields Milburn24:40

      Yeah.

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee24:41

      I'm really interested as to the best way, in your opinion, of tackling this. A- and, and what I'm getting at is over the last few weekends-

   4. JMJoshua Fields Milburn24:54

      Mm-hmm

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee24:54

      ... I have probably taken on average eight full bags to the charity shop-

   6. JMJoshua Fields Milburn25:01

      Wow

   7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee25:02

      ... of, of stuff, right? And, and, and this is not actually in preparation for our conversation today. It's not as if, oh, Josh-

   8. JMJoshua Fields Milburn25:07

      [laughs]

   9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee25:07

      ... was coming on the podcast. Time to actually put my minimalist hat on and take that identity for a few weeks. No. It's actually really interesting. So when my wife and I bought this house in which we currently live, it was empty, right? Completely empty. I remember she was eight months pregnant. We had no beds, no furniture, no kitchen stools, and I had this old Pilates medicine ball that I put onto, next to the kitchen counter so she could sit on it whilst eating. And I thought, everything in this house, we have literally brought in at some point since 2010, right? But the point I'm trying to get to is that I've been on this kind of inner journey probably since my dad died in 2013, and it was the very first time I turned inwards and asked myself, "Rangan, whose life are you actually living?" You know, who do I wanna be?

   10. JMJoshua Fields Milburn26:09

       Mm.

   11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee26:09

       Who do I wanna become? All these kind of things. One of the simplest ways to improve your whole body health is to start with your feet. Now, most of us don't realize this, but 95% of us are born with healthy feet, and by adulthood, 77% of us have foot problems, and a big reason is the shoes that we wear. Now, most modern shoes are rigid, narrow, and over-cushioned, which ends up weakening the very muscles that supports our posture, balance, and movement. That's why I have been wearing Vivobarefoot shoes for over 10 years now. They're designed for fit, flex, and feel to let your feet do what human feet have evolved to do. And studies show that wearing minimalist footwear like Vivos can increase foot strength by up to 60% in just six months, which can improve balance, posture, and the way in which you move. Now, if you've never tried barefoot shoes before, Vivobarefoot make it really easy. They offer a 100-day money back guarantee, so you can wear them, live in them, move naturally, and if they're not for you, just send them back, no risk at all. Vivobarefoot are offering you an incredible 15% off your first order. Just scan the QR code on screen or head to vivobarefoot.com/livemore. Free your feet and the rest will follow. And I believe that if I was going to try and organize or declutter my world back then, I would've struggled because I wasn't ready to do it.

   12. JMJoshua Fields Milburn27:56

       Mm.

   13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee27:57

       But I've done so much inner work over the past few years. I feel I've understood what's really important. I feel I've orientated my life intentionally around the things that are important. I've got way better at saying no, and I find now that on the weekends when I wanna start clearing out the house, it's just easy. I don't feel the attachment to the things. So I guess the question I'm trying to get to, 'cause you've spoken to so many people around the world about this, and you would've answered tens of thousands of questions from people, can you declutter your external world from the outside in?

   14. JMJoshua Fields Milburn28:38

       Hmm.

   15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee28:38

       Or does it have to come from the inside out?

   16. JMJoshua Fields Milburn28:42

       Yeah. Yeah. It's almost like asking is a pushup, uh, up or down, right? [laughs] It is like-

   17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee28:47

       Exactly. It's a trick question, I guess.

   18. JMJoshua Fields Milburn28:50

       Yeah. Well, no, I, I, I think it's a, it's a useful question because you're right. People call into our, our podcast all the time, our, our show. We've been doing it for a decade now, and it's a, it's a call-in show and, and people ask questions. And it often starts with the stuff, and then you learn very quickly that the story behind the stuff is what's keeping them from either letting go of the thing, or it's making them want to acquire the thing. It's always the story that's attached to the thing. And, uh, I do think it's useful sometimes to have certain tools or boundaries or rules, whatever you want to call them. In fact, we have this, uh, we, we call The Minimalist Rule Book. It's 16 rules for living with less. People can download it on our website for free. Um, and millions of people have, have downloaded that at this point, and you tweeze out a few... I just call them boundaries. They're not really rules. They're boundaries that help us live more intentionally. But you, uh... And what is a boundary? Uh, w- it's worth talking about 'cause that word has been in vogue for the last few years now.

   19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee29:51

       Mm-hmm.

   20. JMJoshua Fields Milburn29:51

       But when I say boundary, all I mean is like, here's what I'm willing to accept. Anything that's in bounds is what I'm willing to accept. If something's out of bounds, I'm no longer willing to accept it. You know, if you're watching a, a, a football match or a, uh, a basketball game, there's an out of bounds, and as soon as we step out of bounds, it's unacceptable. You can't keep playing the game. And so you get to determine what is in bounds for you. And, and I do find it useful sometimes to have some of those heuristics. Like we have some heuristics, like the 90/90 rule for your clothes. We call it the seasonality rule. Anything I haven't worn in the last 90 days, I, I pick up any piece of clothing. It's, it could be an old shirt, and have I worn this in the last 90 days? No. Okay. Will I wear it in the next 90 days? Eh, I gotta be honest with myself. No, I don't think I'm going to. Okay. Then I give myself permission to let it go. And that, uh... What's magical about the, that number 90? Nothing. You can adjust it. Maybe it's 60 days for you, or 180 days. It, it doesn't matter. The question is, like, how am I more intentional with the things I'm holding onto?But you hit the nail on the head here. There's usually some sort of emotional clutter that's going on behind that. There's some sort of deep grief or sadness, or maybe it's just a low-level anxiety, um, because we're overstimulated and there's a lot of noise and, uh, and it's not just the material noise now, it's all the digital noise. And so that low level of anxiety has encouraged me to consume. And oh, by the way, all of the advertisements telling me that I have a problem I didn't realize I had, and they have a solution to a problem I didn't have six minutes ago. Uh, no wonder we feel so incomplete. And so, uh, we often are advertised to, uh, products. Instagram's especially great at that. That's another boundary I have. I don't buy anything from an Instagram ad, not because I think it's wrong or evil, because I know I am a, a consumerist if I fall back into that identity, right? And so I have to be careful and say, "Oh, that's just not a, a boundary that I... That's not a, a, a thing that I, I want to, to do," because I understand that my behaviors can be tricked, and so I have to set up some ground there. But ultimately it always comes back to what's going on inside me.

   21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee31:58

       Yeah.

   22. JMJoshua Fields Milburn31:58

       Mental clutter, emotional clutter, w- psychological clutter, spiritual clutter. The- these are different ways that we interact with the world, and then we see it sort of metastasize into our stuff.

   23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee32:09

       Yeah. First of all, I love this idea of rules or boundaries or, or principles, whatever you wanna call them, as just guidelines to help you navigate this world where you are being marketed to constantly. You know, I... Last night I was watching your latest documentary. Did that come out three years ago now? I thought it was newer than that.

   24. JMJoshua Fields Milburn32:29

       Yeah, I think so.

   25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee32:30

       About three years ago.

   26. JMJoshua Fields Milburn32:30

       Yeah.

10. 32:30 – 45:31

    Advertising, Black Friday, and the true cost of “deals”: fool’s price, waiting, and opting out

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee32:30

       And again, it's just, it's brilliant. It's absolutely fantastic. I watched it on Netflix.

    2. JMJoshua Fields Milburn32:36

       Thank you.

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee32:37

       And there's a, there's a section in it where I think you or Ryan say, "Products promise us fulfillment but give us dissatisfaction." I thought, I, I, I love that. What a, what a, what a evocative and a provocative thought. And then you go to one of the contributors to, to the film, and I think it is such a common story, this. She basically says, "I work hard. I feel like I deserve it, so I order stuff. Stuff will show up, but then the shame and the guilt will start."

    4. JMJoshua Fields Milburn33:19

       Yes.

    5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee33:19

       And well, that's the cycle a lot of people, dare I say most people, are stuck in. You know, they... It, it... You can't... It's like you said before, you can't separate this problem with clutter away from the way we live our lives, right? So we live these disconnected, isolated lives. Many of us are working too hard. Maybe we need to work that hard. Maybe, you know, maybe our boss doesn't have great working conditions for us or whatever it might be.

    6. JMJoshua Fields Milburn33:48

       Mm-hmm.

    7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee33:48

       And so to alleviate the discomfort from the state of our lives, we need to go somewhere, and that somewhere can be anywhere, right? It can be social media, films, shopping, you know, gambling, whatever you want. Anything.

    8. JMJoshua Fields Milburn34:05

       Yeah.

    9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee34:05

       You know? Uh, some sort of way to distract ourselves and actually numb the discomfort we feel about the state of our lives. And going back to what I said before, Josh, w- you know, as we're recording this, we've all been... What's the word? What's the, what's the polite way of putting it? We've, we've all been, we've all been exposed to the barrage of Black Friday emails, you know?

    10. JMJoshua Fields Milburn34:36

        [laughs]

    11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee34:36

        There's, there's been a, there's, there, there's been a problem in my inbox recently where my junk and my normal have, have gone together. I don't know what's happened, right? I'm trying to fix it and I can't fix it.

    12. JMJoshua Fields Milburn34:45

        [laughs]

    13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee34:45

        So I'm thinking of changing my email accounts, which I've been thinking about doing for a while anyway.

    14. JMJoshua Fields Milburn34:50

        Yeah.

    15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee34:50

        And suddenly I'm like, oh my God, I'm, I'm like getting 20 emails a day, uh, you know, from, from brands and companies I really like, but it's like Black Friday madness has happened. So-

    16. JMJoshua Fields Milburn35:02

        Yes

    17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee35:03

        ... you need, you do need certain rules to navigate that because if you leave it to your own devices, you are gonna be stressed one night and maybe not feeling as good as you could do, and you are gonna be susceptible to bringing more stuff into your house. But the point I was trying to make is that I think that was a very powerful section of the film because it does speak to this central idea that people don't feel whole.

    18. JMJoshua Fields Milburn35:33

        Mm.

    19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee35:33

        And the stuff is there to fill that hole, but it can't fill that hole. The hole will still be there. So instead of filling it, you still feel discontented and you just end up with 300,000 items.

    20. JMJoshua Fields Milburn35:45

        [laughs] Right. And it creates a, a new hole in, in a way. And it... Yeah, it's interesting how the objects of our desire become the objects of our discontent after they're acquired, right?

    21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee35:54

        Mm.

    22. JMJoshua Fields Milburn35:54

        A- and, and maybe it's not immediately. Maybe you get that new car and it has the new car smell. And I drive a car, so I'm not against cars. Um, but you get that first car payment in the mail and you realize like, oh, wait, is this actually worth it, right? Oh, man, now I have 83 more of these now, right? And, and, uh, we go into tremendous amounts of debt financially, but there's also this sort of emotional debt. You talked about when the Amazon package shows up at your front door, it sort of comes prepackaged with the shame and grief that you were talking about there. [laughs] Isn't that interesting? We don't think about what else the... I call it the true cost of our goods because there's a price tag on a thing, but what are the other costs that are associated with our things? The cost of storing the thing and cleaning the thing and taking care of the thing and protecting the thing and locking the thing up and repainting the thing and changing the oil on the thing or putting gas in the thing, or what if the thing needs batteries? Or what if I have to worry about the thing? There's some mental clutter right there, right? Or what if someone's gonna take it from me? Now I'm, uh-I have to be protective of the thing. These are all the costs-

    23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee37:03

        Yeah

    24. JMJoshua Fields Milburn37:03

        ... that are associated with our things. It's not just the price tag. But to get back to some of those rules that you were talking about here, another precept that works well for me is you talked about the Black Friday thing and, and, and sale price. Yeah, Black Friday is just a type of sale price, and, um, I, I know because I used to work in the corporate world, and we made about 40% of our revenue, uh, between Thanksgiving and the end of the year. So Thanksgiving is the middle of to end of, of November here in America. And so the last six weeks of the year roughly was we had all these big Black Friday sales and Cyber Monday and all, all of these things that are designed to get you to buy. And it makes me think like, well, wait a minute, were they... Okay, it's 40% off now. Were they just ripping me off yesterday? Well, uh, [laughs] and, and by the way, this year I got my first Black Friday email in October, and it's like, well, wait a minute. And then on Jan- or on November 1st, I got an email that said, "Oh, um, Happy Black Friday month," which is literally-

    25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee38:04

        Yeah

    26. JMJoshua Fields Milburn38:04

        ... incoherent. And then I see sale price all the time. I don't call it sale price anymore. In fact, I have a rule for that. It's called fool's price. Sale price is fool's price, and this might shock you, but I've saved many, many tens of thousands of dollars. I don't buy anything that's on sale. And that might sound ignorant or silly to most people, but I don't buy things that are on sale, not because I'm allergic to sale price. And if I get to the register and they're like, "Oh, this is 10% off," I'm not gonna be like, "Screw you, I'm paying full price."

    27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee38:35

        [laughs]

    28. JMJoshua Fields Milburn38:36

        [laughs] But my point is that I don't let the impulse of-

    29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee38:41

        Yeah

    30. JMJoshua Fields Milburn38:41

        ... sale price determine whether or not that thing's going to add value to my life. Because here's the truth, money has to be considered. If I, if money, it was in a car, it's a, it's a necessary passenger and we have to consider it. Whether it's the creative work that we're doing, the job that we're working, or the things that we buy, I have to consider money. It's a great passenger in the car. It's worth considering. It is a terrible driver. Money is a drunk driver. And if I'm making my purchasing decisions based primarily on whether or not this thing is on sale, you hear it all the time, like, "Oh yeah, I bought it because I saved $40 on it." It's like, well, you save 100% if you just leave it at the store.
11. 45:31 – 58:29

    Desire, lack, and community: why we often want the wanting (not the object)

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee45:31

       Yeah. Do you still find that you want much stuff?

    2. JMJoshua Fields Milburn45:39

       Hmm. Well, you brought up the, that term a couple times now, lacking, right? I think I don't want as much now that I realize that the desire is actually one of the things that we do want in, in a way. So I'll give you an example. Um, let's say I really wanted a BMW. I don't have a BMW, but if I, if I wanted a BMW, and like I started putting it up on my vision board, and I'm getting the brochures sent to me, and I look at the website, and I'm typing all the custom, "I want this color and this interior," there's something kind of exciting about that. There's a desire to that, right? But what did I say earlier? The objects of our desire become the objects of our discontent after they're acquired. And so in a weird way, we don't actually want the BMW, we want the desire. And that desire can be for another human being, it could be for interaction, it could be desire to contribute beyond ourselves in a meaningful way, it could be desire for a new mattress, it could be desire for good sleep. But we don't just want the things that we think we want. We don't just desire those things. We desire the desire. And often one of the worst things that we can do is acquire the object of our desire because then it extinguishes the desire. The philosopher, French philosopher Lacan, he, he talked about object A. And I find this concept really fascinating because everyone has an object A. It's the thing that you'd be willing to set your life on fire in order to obtain, basically. And whether it's that BMW or it's the, the promotion or it's a million followers on Instagram or, um, maybe it's the, the dream home or maybe it is the job, the dream job. Whatever it is, it's your object A, and sometimes it can be healthfully expressed, sometimes it's unhealthfully expressed, but it's the thing we desire more than anything else. And the problem is when we get it. We often get it. And this happened to me by age 30. I had gotten everything I ever wanted, and it took getting everything I ever wanted to realize that maybe everything I ever wanted wasn't actually what I wanted at all. Maybe there was something about that lack, and maybe there's even something about a shared lack. That's what, uh, communion is.

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee47:55

       Mm.

    4. JMJoshua Fields Milburn47:56

       If you-- I'm not talking about in a church setting, but like a community, sa- same root there. We commune around something. But a, a communion is often around a shared lack. You'll see this at a AA meeting, for example. Different people from all different b- backgrounds. Really wildly successful businessmen and, and, uh, housewives and homeless people and drug addicts and nurses and doctors and unemployed people and construction workers all in the same room. What do they have in common? Well, nothing except for their shared lack. And that's what our humanity is ultimately, is we're congregating around some sort of shared lack. Even those hunter-gatherer tribes, they're hunting and gathering-

    5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee48:41

       Mm

    6. JMJoshua Fields Milburn48:41

       ... because they lack the food that they need. Otherwise, they wouldn't need to hunt or gather if it was just-

    7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee48:46

       Yeah

    8. JMJoshua Fields Milburn48:46

       ... served up to them, uh, like a McDonald's drive-through sort of thing. And so I, I think ultimately part of the human experience is about embracing that, that lack. And so do I still desire things? Sure. Um, but I'm less compelled by impulse than I've ever been.

    9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee49:06

       Yeah. The reason I ask that question is I found on my inner journey, for want of a better term, I just find these days, and maybe for the last few years now, that-I don't really want much stuff

    10. JMJoshua Fields Milburn49:29

        Hmm

    11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee49:30

        Uh, and I can't tell you that, oh, I did A and that led to B. It, I, I can't give you that, right? So there's no easy prescription that gets you there. I just know that for a sustained period of time, and this is why I ask you the question, because you've been a minimalist, I think, as you say, for 15 years, right? And-

    12. JMJoshua Fields Milburn49:48

        Yeah

    13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee49:48

        ... you must have started somewhere, and it must be a constantly evolving journey as you get to know yourself better and you, things that you thought you still needed maybe five years ago, you're like, "Well, actually, you know what? I don't really need that." But what I found, Josh, is that I just don't find... I, I feel I'm very content with what I have. You know, as-

    14. JMJoshua Fields Milburn50:10

        Yeah

    15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee50:10

        ... all these great philosophers talk about. You know, what does Socrates say? "The secret to happiness is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less." Now-

    16. JMJoshua Fields Milburn50:20

        Yeah

    17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee50:20

        ... I can say that, but I also have to recognize, and this mu- this must be a question that comes at you sometimes. Because I've got the societal ticks of success, and I realize-

    18. JMJoshua Fields Milburn50:36

        Yeah

    19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee50:36

        ... that that doesn't actually make you happy, right? So with that realization, I have lived my life a lot more intentionally. I guess, can you get there? I think you can, but perhaps it's easier to get there once you've kind of filled that bucket and realized that that bucket wasn't what you were after. To go, "Ugh, yeah, I played that game. That game ain't the game, the game I wanna play," right? So if you have never-

    20. JMJoshua Fields Milburn51:05

        Yeah

    21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee51:05

        ... had that kind of validation-

    22. JMJoshua Fields Milburn51:08

        Right

    23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee51:08

        ... perhaps you still believe the myth that actually, "No, when I get it, when I get that promotion-"

    24. JMJoshua Fields Milburn51:14

        Sure

    25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee51:14

        ... "when I get that job, things will be good." Do you know, you, you... I'm, I'm sure you must have been asked this before.

    26. JMJoshua Fields Milburn51:19

        Yeah, you bring up a good point, and now there are more ways than ever to count success, right? The so-called success, which I, I don't even think success exists. I think all success is failure on some level, uh, in, in the sense that, like, we, we often point to trophies thinking that that is success. Some- sometimes the trophies of success are the material objects. I, I, I got the big deal, so I bought this car, or I got the promotion, so I bought this house, or I, I, um, got the new jobs, and I have to wear these types of expensive suits or dresses. And those things make it so that we, we get wrapped up in that identity that we talked about earlier, right? And we just keep playing a new game, and then we up the stakes of the game. 'Cause you realize, like, oh yeah, I remember when I was 18 years old, and I got that first corporate job, and I was like, "Okay, what do I need to make in order to be happy?" And it was like, okay, $50,000 a year. If I can make $50,000 a year in Dayton, Ohio in 1999, then I can be happy. And I made 50,000, and by the next year when I was 19, it was like, uh, nope, that didn't do it. I need to adjust for inflation. So maybe it's $65,000 a year that'll make me happy, and then maybe it's 90,000. And, and, and the number keeps going up, and it's six figures, and of course that, that race never ends. That's a pleasure chase. Uh, a- and in a, in a way, it's a type of hedonism, and hedonism is not a sustainable lifestyle. It's the, called the hedonic treadmill, right? We just stay on it, and it keeps going faster and faster. We need more and more. It becomes the disease of more again. It metastasizes to every area of our lives. And so we all do play this game, and, and we think that if I just have what he has or I have what she has, they appear to be happy. But we're not seeing what's going on underneath the surface. There are very few people who are contented with their relationships. There are very few people who are contented with their financial situations. It's not because they couldn't be. It's because they think they need to be other, somewhere other than where they are right now.

    27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee53:30

        Yeah. Might there be someone who has stumbled across this conversation who perhaps lives in poverty-

    28. JMJoshua Fields Milburn53:41

        Mm-hmm

    29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee53:41

        ... and struggles to pay the rent, feed the family-

    30. JMJoshua Fields Milburn53:47

        Mm
12. 58:29 – 1:31:39

    Pain, growth, and the Trojan horse of clutter: from childhood hardship to practical next steps

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee58:29

       And I can't imagine what, what that would have been like for you. We've talked a lot in this conversation about that everything has a cost, but we can also flip that and go everything also has an upside.

    2. JMJoshua Fields Milburn58:45

       Ooh, yeah.

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee58:46

       So I guess my question to you is, what were the upsides of your childhood and your upbringing?

    4. JMJoshua Fields Milburn58:55

       Yeah. Yeah. I, I remember we did a episode with Kelly Starrett once. He had this great quote. He said, "Pain is a request for change." And he was talking about that in your body, right? You know, pain is a request for healing. Something needs to change in your body-

    5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee59:07

       Mm

    6. JMJoshua Fields Milburn59:07

       ... so that it can heal, and I thought that was, that was interesting, but also pain is from where we grow. Um, it can destroy us as well at, at, at too high of a volume, but, like, we all know that, about the comfort crisis that we've lived in, and we're pacifying ourselves to death, and, um, you don't grow from a place of comfort. The discomfort zone is the place from which we grow the most, and sometimes that discomfort feels painful. I lived in a world for a long time where I thought that quick shortcuts to pleasure were the best route, but of course, there are no shortcuts. There are only direct routes, and many of those routes that I took, the easy pleasure almost always leads to an unnecessary pain, right? But if you are willing to accept the, the pain of the moment, whether it's, you know, the, uh, going to the gym and, and that sort of pain or, you know, the ice bath craze that's going on now. That's painful if you get into an ice bath for a few minutes, right? Like, you, you feel the pain immediately, but it's earned, uh, reward at the end of that, right? And so quite often we're not earning the pleasure that we, that we seek now, and I would say also that, that much of the growth that we have is earned in a way. Like, I didn't seek out any of the pain of my childhood, obviously. I don't think you need to seek out suffering. It's going to show up in your life whether you want it to or not. Don't worry about seek- seeking it out. It's gonna show up at your doorstep, um, especially when you don't want it to, and it's going to change a lot of things in your life. But it's also, wow, what have I learned from this? I've learned that I can bear the unbearable, whether that's an autoimmune condition or some sort of health scare or a death in the family, or it's your father abusing your mother when you're three years old on Green Street in Dayton, Ohio. It's, uh... And we had to escape that whole situation. We had to run away from him, basically. Um, and I don't even blame him. It's... I don't blame a tornado for coming through Dayton a few years ago either, right? Like, it just... You don't point the finger and say, "How dare you, tornado?" He was mentally ill. He, he was schizophrenic, and, um-And, uh, and we had to get away from, from that, right? So suffering shows up and the question is, like, what am I going to do with that pain that I've experienced? Am I gonna learn from it? Or am I gonna keep repeating that cycle? Because that often happens. Someone who is abused as a kid often becomes a, an abuser. Victims become victimizers, right? And so we have to be intentional about that. Otherwise, it's easy to just-

    7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:01:58

       Yeah

    8. JMJoshua Fields Milburn1:01:58

       ... adopt that pattern, wrap ourselves in that pattern, and then begin to victimize others.

    9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:02:03

       Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Um, as I've been thinking about the whole concepts of minimalism over the past few days, I've really landed on the thought that the entry point for people of having too much stuff is almost like a Trojan horse.

    10. JMJoshua Fields Milburn1:02:29

        Yes.

    11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:02:30

        It's a symptom. You have a load of stuff. You think the stuff is the problem, but it isn't the stuff, it's your relationship to the stuff. And as you embark upon this journey of trying to declutter your external world, you will, through that process, start to learn really profound things about yourself if you're paying attention.

    12. JMJoshua Fields Milburn1:02:57

        Mm.

    13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:02:59

        Now, Joshua, what... How old were you when you started being a minimalist?

    14. JMJoshua Fields Milburn1:03:04

        Um, I, I was 28 when my mom died and my marriage ended both in the same month, and those two things, they, they made me realize, like, oh, the way I've been living right now is not it.

    15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:03:18

        Yeah.

    16. JMJoshua Fields Milburn1:03:18

        I don't know what it is. Thankfully, I stumbled across this idea of minimalism, and it wasn't something, you know, dangerous like a, a cult or something like that.

    17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:03:26

        Yeah.

    18. JMJoshua Fields Milburn1:03:26

        Uh, minimalism's sort of the anti-cult. But, uh, uh, yeah, I, I was 28 years old-

    19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:03:32

        28

    20. JMJoshua Fields Milburn1:03:32

        ... and, uh, yeah, it took almost a year for me to start simplifying.

    21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:03:36

        Yeah. The, the reason I ask that question is because everyone these days wants the hack. They want the one hit. They want the solution, and it's like, hey, guys, listen, you gotta start somewhere, and this is a constant journey of growth and evolution. Once you start on that path, and if you keep paying attention and wanna stay on that path, you will continue to learn things about yourself that you didn't previously know. So if you started in your late 20s, I think I heard in one of your podcasts you say when you were 39, you realized that a lot of your suffering came from your desire to impress other people.

    22. JMJoshua Fields Milburn1:04:17

        Ah, yeah.

    23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:04:18

        Now, that was really... It was really powerful to hear that, and, and I wanna talk about that through the lens of constant evolution. You were already 10 years into your journey as a minimalist. You must have been learning-

    24. JMJoshua Fields Milburn1:04:33

        [laughs]

    25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:04:33

        ... and uncovering so much about yourself, and still, 10 years on, there was a core realization, which is a core realization for many people if they are self-aware enough to realize that that's where a lot of our suffering does come from. But can you speak to that a little bit? Because that's interesting to me, that it didn't come straight away. It came as you were embarking upon this journey.

    26. JMJoshua Fields Milburn1:04:59

        Yeah, it was sort of an unraveling of sorts. Like, and maybe I realized glimpses of that, but that was through the material things. Like, I wanna impress people through the car that I drive or the job title that I have or the house, the neighborhood that I live in. That's impressive, right? And so, um, that was one, but, but you can also trade that for other, o- other means. And it can be impressive getting rid of everything to impress other people. That's another type of, uh... It's another trap, right? Um, or getting more followers is a trap. Getting people to like me. And, and the internet is especially dangerous for this 'cause we're working really hard to impress people we'll never meet or people that don't even exist, right? Bots or whatever. A- and so it's like I'm working really hard. I'm forsaking the people closest to me when I was in the corporate world. I forsook my closest relationships in order to look impressive, to appear impressive. And yeah, at 39 I, I, I had several sort of epiphanies, um, as I, as I really got into the, the whole identity side of it. And I realized that, like, it... The people I was trying to impress were actually far more impressed when I wasn't trying to impress them. [laughs] It's a weird paradox, right? Like, the person, the coolest person you can think of, I mean, if you- anyone listening to this conjures an image of the three coolest people, they're not trying to impress you, and yet they're the most impressive people to you. But it's precisely because they don't care about whether or not you're impressed by them.

    27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:06:42

        Mm-hmm. How is your relationship to other people's opinions these days?

    28. JMJoshua Fields Milburn1:06:51

        Well, we accidentally became famous in 2016. That was not the intention. Um, when that first documentary went up on Netflix, it was before there were any other streaming platforms, and it was, like, on the first page for several months. And, uh-

    29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:07:06

        The first page of Netflix

    30. JMJoshua Fields Milburn1:07:07

        ... I couldn't go... Yeah. [laughs]

Episode duration: 1:31:39