515 | Holiday Shopping Season

Every little thing you think that you need Every little thing that's just feeding your greed Oh I bet that you'll be fine without it Yes, hello simpletons, welcome to the minimalist podcast where we discuss what it means to live a meaningful life with less My name is Joshua Fields-Millburn and we're recording this episode here at Erthing Studios in beautiful West Hollywood, California Everyone's favorite holiday is this week It's Black Friday y'all It's the day we get to be thankful for all the money we're saving on things we don't even need to buy in the first place Coincidentally, my very beautiful black co-host is not here for Black Friday He's actually waiting in line right now at the bed bath and beyond He's going to save 30% on a vacuum that he's buying for his wife for Christmas No, TK isn't here, he's actually flying out to Nashville today And he's going to be on Ken Coleman's show, he's doing the whole Ramsey circuit John Deloni, George Camel, and so he's not with us here today But don't worry, we have a beautiful studio full of beautiful people here Savvy D is here, Professor Sean is here I've given them microphones and stacks of paper towels because we're here to clean up your mess today Your Black Friday mess Also, Tomcat is here, she's been editing some episodes for us as well I think most recently, did you do the Guy Finley episode? Yeah, it was so good By the way, nice work on that episode I love the way that that turned out Guy Finley was such a beautiful addition to the show TK recommended him and I was a little skeptical at first because I had not heard of him And TK is like, he's one of my five favorite living philosophers And it goes to show you that even a blind squirrel can find a nut every once in a while Good job, TK I'm sorry you're not here today, but he'll be back with us next week We got a lot to talk about today though Because it's Black Friday week, it's Thanksgiving week We got a lot to be thankful for here today Coming up on this episode, we're going to talk about celebrating the holidays As we get into this holiday shopping season We're going to talk about making it the holiday season again Holidays without consumerism We're also going to talk about some of our craziest Black Friday stories The willingness to walk away from anything and much, much more Also, coming up on page three, we'll review six often overlooked spaces in your home to declutter right now Let's start with our callers If you have a question or comment for our show, we would love to hear from you Our phone number is 406-219-7839 Or you can email a voice recording right from your phone to podcast at theminimalists.com Let us know if you're a Patreon subscriber so we can prioritize your message By the way, big thanks to our patrons Shout out to our simpletons over there on Patreon You keep our podcast advertisement free because sing along at home, y'all Advertisement suck Yes, they do In fact, we have a sucky ad segment on page two We're going to talk about the suckiest kind of ads And when they become a little bit less sucky We'll talk about all of that on page two But first, our first question today is from Abby Hey, Minimalists, this is Abby from Sugarland, Texas wanting to ask you How does a Minimalist go about getting back to the true meaning of holidays And celebrating the change of seasons without falling into the trap of consumerism? Falling into the trap of consumerism So I like this because consumerism is a trap It's almost a tautology because consumerism traps us into consumption Consumerism is simply an ideology that acquiring more externalities are going to make me happy or complete And in the holiday season that is often shown through what? Gift giving, right? We say that, oh, my love language is gift giving And I think that's kind of like saying that pig Latin is a romance language Because gift giving isn't a real love language any more than pig Latin is a romance language Of course, I want to be charitable here I know what people mean by gift giving is a love language They mean contribution is a love language You have people in your life that you really care about, Abby And you want to show them that you care Unfortunately, consumerism and marketers and advertisers have shown us that the best way to show them that we care is by buying them widgets And the more expensive the widget, the more that I care Yeah, I really care about you if I buy you this nice thousand dollar watch But I care about you three times as much if I buy you a three thousand dollar watch, right? And man, I must not care about you that much at all if I only bought you an eighty dollar watch Or what if I didn't get you anything for the holidays? Do I not care about you at all? Do I only care about you if I'm willing to purchase a gift and give it to you on these obligatory gift giving days? These holidays are confusing for many of us because they stress us out We're supposed to feel joy and excitement and love and connection during these times of the year Maybe we take some time off of work just foreign to me because I all of my adult life up until age 30 I worked in the retail world And the busiest time of year for me where I was working many sixteen hour days was around Black Friday And then all the way through till Christmas So it was a chaotic time of year and I spent most of November and December in shopping malls working And trying to convince people to fall into the trap of consumerism as Abby talked about And so your question is an important one because it is possible to celebrate the holidays without falling into that trap of consumerism Let's talk about what that might look like Well let's imagine for a moment that you went into this holiday season and said I'm unable to buy a gift for anyone this holiday season But I'm still required to enjoy myself and to lighten the load or lighten the lives of everyone else in my life Well with that outcome in mind would you be able to figure that out? You might say yeah but it's going to be really challenging right because well Because I don't know how to show that I love someone or care about them without giving them a physical good I say okay that's fine but would it be possible to show someone you love them without giving them a physical good And of course you know deep down in your heart the answer to that is yes Of course you show people every day that you care about them without having to give them something And so when I look at the people around me the question is what can I do to show them that I care through tiny little insignificant often mundane actions day to day And then do I need to amplify that for the holidays? Because what does it mean to love someone? It means to see them for who they are without trying to change them or manipulate them And I think that's one of the problems with consumerism especially gift giving during the holidays It can be at its worst it can be manipulative It can become transactional right but of course love is not a transaction it's a non-transactable good And so I'm trying to express this non-transactable good through a transaction and that's why you feel this level of discomfort I could even hear it when you're asking the question it's like I don't want to fall into this trap of consumerism And maybe you're in that trap for a really long time you didn't even realize you were there because like a fish that's swimming in water It doesn't realize that it's swimming in water you've been swimming in consumerism for a long time You've seen it every time you turn on the TV and there are all these ads that are convincing you to buy something for yourself or for someone else Or you see everyone else get into the holiday spirit and for them that means buying gifts Or if you're anything like me you wait till the last minute because during the holiday season I was so busy working And then all of a sudden on December 24th I'm like oh crap I have this whole list of things I need to buy for people I have a list of people for whom I need to give them something and then I go to the mall and I just start going store by store by store by store Shopping for inspiration that's what Nicodemus would call it And is that love? It doesn't feel like love It feels like panic, it feels like anxiety, it feels like stress, it feels like overwhelm And not that good kind of overwhelm that you feel when there's limerence in a relationship that we often mistake for love as well It's a crushing anxiety I need to show that I'm enough for the people around me and I can only be enough if I buy the right things And that's consumerism, it's using those externalities to complete me or to complete the relationship And of course it doesn't work, at best you get something for someone and they enjoy it, they like it, they're pleased with it But for how long? Because that pleasure it fades, it's not real happiness, it's not real satisfaction, it's certainly not fulfillment Now on the flip side of this, I want to be clear, I'm not against gift giving or gift getting I don't want to stand up here and be Scrooge McDuck and say you're Ba-humbug or just I guess Scrooge, Scrooge McDuck too I don't want to just stand up here and say Ba-humbug, screw your gifts, I'm opting out of the holiday season altogether I can tell you personally I don't buy gifts anymore, but it took many many years to sort of reprogram my relationships I don't buy gifts but it's on non-obligatory days I'll get something from my wife and I'll just bring it home for her, why'd you get this? It's November 7th What's special about today is I love you every day and while this gift isn't showing you my love It's just showing you that I see you and I witness you and at best a gift cannot supplant that experience of love It can amplify your experience with another human being, it can enhance your experience in some way And that's why many of the gifts that we give to other people, they're supposed to fill a void as opposed to expand the relationship and what we're able to do within the relationship and so the Minimals have a couple rules around this We have that Minimals rulebook, 16 rules for living with less which Abby you can download for free if you haven't already It's over on our website, theminimals.com slash rulebook, it's free and in there there's 16 rules, two of them involved gift giving Minimals gift giving rule and the minimalist gift getting rule And I think part of turning the holidays into a more celebratory experience as opposed to an anxiety-ridden just time of year that we want to get through I'm trying to survive the holidays, right? I just want to get through this gift giving experience, that doesn't feel good It feels like you're having the white knuckle of the holidays How good does it feel at the end of it? If you feel drained at the end of the holidays, then maybe you were doing the holidays wrong And so I think it starts with asking for better gifts, which is really strange to hear coming from a minimalist, right? The minimalist gift getting rule is ask for better gifts Because I don't want to say no, don't get me anything ever So instead of saying no, I tell people yes to what I would enjoy receiving Maybe it's a bag of coffee from a local roaster that I enjoy, so a consumable like that Other people could be wine or chocolate or a meal together Maybe it's also just contributing beyond ourselves to something else that's greater than us I often ask for people to just donate money to one of my favorite charities in my name Whether that's GiveWell.org, the Against Malaria Foundation, or Charity Water Yeah, just send in a donation in my name, that way you're contributing, I'm contributing And I'm not getting another necktie or pair of cuff links or something I would have never asked for in the first place Although practically, I think it makes sense to ask for better gifts even if there's something in your life that you really need I really need a new pair of boots Okay, wonderful. Then tell the people around you that you need a new pair of boots And it'd be really helpful if they're considering getting you a gift during the holidays to get you that pair of boots Because it's something you'll actually use every day, it'll be useful And because of that, it'll be a much more meaningful gift, not just for you, but for them as well Because every time you interact with that person, now they see you wearing those boots and they're like, oh yeah, I did that for you Who's able to contribute to you? Or maybe you know what? That refrigerator has been on the fritz for a couple months now And it's going to go out soon. I could use some gift certificates to Home Depot or Best Buy or wherever you're going to buy your refrigerator from And that could be another way for them to contribute to you as opposed to just going out there and shopping for inspiration Before we get back to our caller, SavvyD, it is time for our lightning round This is where we answer the Patreon community chats question of the week and we attempt to answer with a short shareable minimal maxim You can find this episode's maxims in the show notes over at theminimalists.com slash podcast and every minimal maxim ever At minimalmaxims.com, we'll also deliver our weekly show notes directly to your inbox including seven new maxims every Monday for free If you sign up for our email newsletter at theminimalists.com, we'll never send you spam or junk or advertisements But we will start your week off with a dose of simplicity The question of the week this week is, what's your craziest Black Friday story? Well, I have a bunch, but before I get to those, let me check in with some of our listeners SavvyD, you put this together for me today So before I give you my pithy answer and some of my own Black Friday experiences, let's hear what some of our listeners had to say Melissa said, when I worked at a food stand at a mall, one customer got so angry when she realized my company had raised its prices on Black Friday That she simply threw her money at us I was actually embarrassed for her, even though she was oblivious to how ridiculous she was behaving Yeah, why is it so easy to overreact when we feel like this perceived slight in the moment? And of course, taking it out on someone who was not in charge of that, like, Melissa didn't raise the prices Melissa was just an innocent bystander and she was working for the company that happened to raise their prices And maybe you could make an argument that was predatory for them to raise their prices Or there's probably another argument that says, hey, we need to staff up on a day like this and that costs us more And so, you know what, we had to charge more money as a result because it required more workers on a day like that Are both of those correct? Yeah, maybe. It's all about the meaning that we give to it as well Also, like the throwing money at someone I know most of us in certain contexts would love to have money thrown at us, right? And metaphorically, I always have money thrown at me, right? But in this context, it's awful. I think about those game shows where they lock someone in a box, you know? And they have all that money just going all around. Like, that sounds like straight joy And it's fun. And they never get any money. They end up walking out of there with like $12, right? But there's something about that experience where you're like, yeah, throw the money at me Now, I bring this up because it's about recontextualizing these things Black Friday for the longest time, for me, had something to do with, well, working a lot of hours I think back to my corporate days when I worked in retail And often, I would have to get up at 2 a.m. to get ready, get the stores ready And then also, before our stores would open at 6, we would go to all of these other stores Like Target and Kohl's and Best Buy and we'd hand out these giant FSI's they were called Freestanding Inserts and they're basically coupon books Strangely, it's the one day of year where people are salivating for coupons They just want... And you would go to line at Target or wherever you were And I would just bring donuts and coffee with me or donuts and hot chocolate And I would hand out these coupon books and people were like, yes, give me more If you do that anywhere else, so I went to the mall right down the street right now with coupon books And started to try to hand them to people, they would be super skeptical I said, get away from me, what are you doing, you creep? But on Black Friday, we're so primed to consume We're ravenous with consumption That, yes, give me more, give me more coupons, give me more savings, give me more stuff More, more, more, more, more And it's all about the context of where we are And then you start to realize that when you are in a retail frenzy like that We behave in ways that we would never behave by ourselves in our living room The worst of it, if you saw our first documentary, Minimalism, when it was on Netflix or it's up on YouTube Now, it opens up with some of the Black Friday chaos And I would say that times have changed quite a bit There's less of that now because we do a lot more shopping online But I think the sentiment is still the same The yearning, the craving, the lust for savings And there's a scarcity element to it And you see people trampling each other Behaving in ways they would never behave to save 30% on a vacuum cleaner $100 off a big screen TV Often people wait in line for hours, they camp out overnight In order to save a few hundred dollars Now, you could also make an argument, it's all part of the experience And maybe you enjoy doing that with your family And yes, I think that's true, and I think a lot of times, that's how it started I remember all of my aunts when I was really young They would, my mom never went And I never knew why at the time She never sat me down and explained it But I think she just didn't want to be a part of this But all of my aunts would get together and they'd go to the outlet malls on Black Friday And it wasn't as much of a frenzy back then in the 80s and early 90s But there was something about that where they were bonding And they happened to bond through shopping Now is that the best way to bond? No, I don't think so at all But I guess it's better to bond over shopping than just to shop in a frenzy And start trampling other people The opposite of bonding Back to our listeners here, Christina said It was 20 years ago, and I was the crazy person I took my mother and daughter to Walmart in the middle of the night There were no baskets left, so I just took a random one Presumably someone else's basket by the bathroom Then I strategically placed my new basket in the way of other customers And gave my daughter a list of things to go get She was 10 years old and would crawl into the crowd And come out with the item one at a time Fast forward to Christmas, the items I had My daughter fight to get were actually her own presents Whoa To be fair, Christina, maybe your daughter's love language is survival of the fittest You're just teaching her how to hunt there Seriously, though, it feels like a metaphor for something Maybe she actually enjoyed that hunt more than she enjoyed It was like a scavenger hunt for Christmas gifts in a way I could see for a kid that could be really, really fun Talk about making the holidays more meaningful Think about what we often do on Easter It's an Easter egg hunt, right? And there's an experiential element to it Which is another great way for the minimalist gift-giving rule It's like gifting experiences What if we went to a concert together? What if we had a picnic together? What if something you'd like to do together? Or what if I just gift you an experience? I don't have to go there at all, but maybe you'll really enjoy this spa Maybe you'll really enjoy... I'm gonna get you a babysitter So that you and your significant other can have a night out together I'm gifting you an experience or an experience by proxy And so, with your daughter, Christina, maybe... It's a fond memory, I don't know Or maybe she's traumatized by it too Maybe she could have gotten trampled there You get to decide that She ultimately gets to decide what the meaning of all of that was But maybe, in a weird way, the real gift was her playing at the store And it had nothing to do with the physical item itself I grew up in Dayton, Ohio, and I grew up really poor And once a week on Fridays, my mom would take me to our local grocery store It was called Big Bear And she'd take me to the toy aisle And I would spend three or four hours in the toy aisle And she would just let me do it And I would compare and contrast... And she'd let me get one toy, like I want one GI Joe figure And there were hundreds of them there, right? Or dozens at least And I would compare them And I'd lay them out and I would think about it And I couldn't tell you the name of a single one of the GI Joe's But I remember those experiences so fondly Because she let me explore It was the experience, it wasn't the purchase And yeah, we would buy a toy and I'd bring it home And I'd play with it, which would be another experience, right? But it was never about the thing It was about what the thing could do for me Which I think maps on to the holiday season quite well Daniela said, back in the day My family turned Black Friday into a full-blown road trip adventure We'd fly into Monterrey, Mexico Pack 15 people into a rented van And cross the border to McAllen, Texas Like a tiny, excited convoy We'd crash at a hotel Then wake up in the middle of the night Just a stand outside Tommy Hill figure At midnight, teeth chattering in negative 4-degree weather Waiting for those doors to swing open Then it was a sprint, coach, Ralph Lauren The whole outlet marathon Since it was the only time we ever shopped We made it count After a few years though, the quote-unquote deals Stopped being deals Hello, fake discounts So the tradition died You know, when you realize a tradition is harmful Or fraudulent in this case, right? It's so much easier to let go of that tradition It's sort of like they... I took my daughter to see Wizard of Oz last year It was an outdoor showing in Ojai And of course, when you learn it's just a guy behind the curtain It kind of loses its magic And consumerism is sort of the same thing You bring home all of your toys Or you get all the discounts you thought you were getting But discounts are interesting and mind-numbing thing sometimes Because often, especially now, this wasn't always the case Although maybe it was and it was just better hidden Retailers will often mark up the price So they can give you a bigger discount And so that $600 TV becomes $700 So they can give you $200 off instead of $100 off Because it feels more compelling to give you $200 off of the TV Which makes you think, like, what were they doing the rest of the year? Were they just screwing you all year? It's like, oh yeah, the rest of the year you were just being overcharged And now this is the appropriate price So Black Friday gets its name from... It's the time when retail businesses went from the red to the black And on their books So throughout most of the year, retail stores, they have to pay... They have exceptionally high OPEX and CAPEX The OPEX are operational expenses And CAPEX are your capital expenditures when you build out a retail store And you pay for all these fixtures and things But especially the operating expenses of a retail store are quite high At one point, I was managing $150 million in operating expenses For these retail businesses And it was... Because of that, because of all the money that goes into it You were in the red all year Black Friday is the day that you start to become profitable And then everything out through the rest of the year is profit We often did 40% of our business in the last two months of the year That's how much of a shopping frenzy is created with the holiday shopping season But then you begin to realize, well, wait a minute These little tricks, these little tactics that are going on during this time of year Why aren't we doing some of those things earlier in the year? And the truth is, you are sometimes, but just to a lesser extent But we've conditioned ourselves to expect really high discounts And as a result, because of our expectations as consumers, what do we do? Well, retailers recognize that you want $200 off that TV Not $100 off the TV And so they raise the price so they can lower it even further for you And at least you feel good about it, why? Because you're telling yourself a story about feeling good about your purchase I save $200 on that TV In fact, we often use that sort of language to justify many of the things that we purchase for ourselves Or for other people I hear it happen all the time and I hear it in my own vocabulary I have to stop myself and it's like, oh yeah, I bought this thing, but I saved 30% It was on sale, I was like, no, no, no Sale price is fool's price Because they fooled me into buying the thing They created a sense of urgency that turned it into an impulse buy It's another one of the rules the minimalists have, the 30-30 rule We also call it the wait for it rule Anything that costs more than $30, I wait 30 hours to purchase it It's not because I don't have $30 to spend on the thing It's because I don't want to consume on impulse It's really easy to go into a grocery store and buy the things that are on your list But then you see something else in the checkout line, you're like, oh, let's go ahead and get that If it was just that one isolated incident, it's probably not that big of a deal But it's never just the one incident, it adds up over seven days or seven weeks or seven months And before you know it, seven years later, of seven years of impulse purchases How many tens of thousands of dollars have I wasted because I wasn't willing to wait for it And so the wait for it rule simply puts some friction between me and that purchase Just enough to say, okay, is this actually going to add value to my life? It's sort of the difference between reacting and responding to someone And the reaction is like, I need to take action immediately Responding is being more intentional And so I can respond to my impulse, I can see something I want to buy And say, ah, okay, I'll buy it, wait, wait, wait Let me respond to this, let me wait 30 hours and if I need it 30 hours from now, I can come back And it will still be there And guess what, you might come back tomorrow and it's not on sale That's fine And that one isolated incident, then yeah, maybe you end up spending more money Or maybe you can simply go to them and say, hey, this was on sale yesterday Would you be willing to honor the price that it was available for yesterday? What are they going to say? No, we don't want your money No, you're trying to throw your money at them And quite often they're going to say, yeah, yeah, we'd be happy to honor that But even if they're not, the Wait for it rule ends up saving you a ton of money in the long run Because most of the things that feel so urgent, the things that you need right now I didn't even know this existed six minutes ago, but now I couldn't possibly live without it At least that's the overreaction that we have in the moment As soon as we put some distance between it, we realized like, oh yeah Not only did I not need it, but it might just end up getting in the way I was just walking this morning I was walking this morning to go get something to eat at the grocery store And there's an irony here because we're our studio is situated between two of the largest malls in LA The Beverly Center is right down here and then the Grove is right down here And they're not just big malls, they're really well-appointed malls They're nice malls relative to almost everywhere else in the country I have a weird fascination with dying malls because I worked in so many malls and I love the YouTube videos In fact, we did a whole episode about dead malls back in the day Let's throw that in the show notes savvy D because it's one of my favorite episodes We just talked about malls that are dying and that transformation But these two malls that are here, they're lavish and they're just putting up the holiday decorations We're recording this week or two in advance and so they're putting all of the holiday decorations up And the Grove does it so, so well They make it really easy to get into the holiday spirit Now, of course, then they want you to buy things when you're there, but you don't have to But as I'm walking through there, there's a park on the other side of it Like a beautiful, it's called Pan Pacific Park It's really one of the prettiest parks in LA And I almost feel like this is a metaphor for my own life I had to walk through years of that retail consumerist experience Before I was able to get to the sort of freedom and calm and joy of that park that I ended up wanting to walk through So I'm walking through this giant outdoor mall in order to get to the peace that's on the other side of it But as I'm walking through it, there's a ton of exciting things There are these joyous displays of art And of course it's there to celebrate commerce But it's also possible to go to a place like that And I know because I've done this quite a bit And simply enjoy it for what it is I could take my daughter there and we can look at the Christmas lights And we can get on the train that goes throughout the outdoor space And we can even have a meal while we're there Without needing to buy a bunch of products in order to express our love to someone else And if anything I especially want to avoid going to a place like that during Black Friday Because that energy, it... I don't know, it's contagious You see people just behaving in ways that I know I don't want to behave either And so I wrote this essay a few years ago I wanted to read it to you today because I think it's just as applicable today as ever I'm going to sip of water here Just getting over this little bit of a cold I had Little children's cold Alright, here we go, this is called Let's talk about Black Friday Here we are in the midst of what is supposedly the most joyous time of year The holiday season And yet for most of us, it's also the most stressful time of year At some point Santa Claus turned corporate And the holiday season metamorphosed into the holiday shopping season Shopping This one word, although birthed from great intentions Has fundamentally changed our outlook from bliss to grim From joy to anxious From celebrating Christmas to surviving the holidays It's upsetting And with consumption's vicious inertia It seems like there's no way for us to exit the speeding train of consumerism This Friday is the busiest shopping day of the year Black Friday Retailers prepare months in advance for this dark day Preparation that's meant to stimulate our insatiable desire to consume Doorbuster sales New products Gigantic newspaper ads TV, radio, billboards Sales, sales, sales, early bird specials One day only, get the best deal Act now while supplies last See store for details But as shiny as its facade may be The pernicious aspects of Black Friday are not few The pandemonium that takes place on this day Is perhaps a broader metaphor for our culture as a whole Our consumer culture On this day we consume gluttonously Without regard for the harm we're inflicting on ourselves On this day greed becomes ravenous On this day we live without real meaning Buying gifts to fill a void we can't fill with material possessions Perhaps one of our followers said it best Black Friday is the day we trample people for things we don't need The day after being thankful for what we have Sadly, we participate in this insanity in the name of a holiday As if buying gifts was an ideal way to celebrate Christmas But thankfully, we have options Instead of embracing Black Friday You can refuse to buy material possessions for people to display your love Rather, you can showcase your love, caring, and affection through daily actions Every day, not just holidays If you want to give gifts, why not gift an experience? A nice meal, tickets to a concert, a sunset on the beach After all, the best, most loving gift you can give someone Is your time and undivided attention Presence is indeed the best present Or, if that doesn't work, maybe you can buy everyone on your Christmas list A giant trash can so they can throw away all the presents they received But didn't ask for in the first place That's the thing, I remember seeing family members Buying gifts for their kids There's so much excitement in the moment The unwrapping, dozens and dozens of gifts But an hour later, it's just a trash heap Most of the things will never be played with beyond that day or that week or that month And it's ironic, that trip I was telling you, I walked down through that outdoor shopping mall And into the park, right on the edge of the shopping mall is what? A big, beautiful storage locker facility And so you buy all these things For holidays, for yourself, for your home To complete your life, to satisfy you, to fulfill you in some way To embrace the trap of consumerism And you store those things in your home for a while And maybe you get a little bit of use out of them and then they cease to be useful In fact, the objects of your desire quickly become the objects of your discontent They get in the way, and when they get in the way, they are clutter And then we get fed up enough with the clutter, what happens? We move it into a closet or a basement, garage, or eventually We don't have space for it in our home So it goes back to that same shopping mall on the edge of it, in the storage locker And so in a weird way, it feels like we could just bypass that whole step of dealing with the thing You could go to the mall and you could buy all the things you thought you needed Or the things you thought would express your love And then instead of giving them to someone else or taking them home Just go ahead and put them in the storage locker that you're going to start paying for right now Now of course you're not going to do that Why aren't you going to do that? Because it's painful I don't want to, why would I spend all my time and money and attention doing that? Well, yeah, it's, you don't want to experience that pain, right? But you're going to experience it eventually if you're not intentional with the decisions that you're making And I speak from personal experience I grew up really poor and I thought the reason we were unhappy And I was growing up as we didn't have a lot of money and so I went to remedy that I skipped the whole college route and I turned 18, I got that entry level job And I worked the next dozen years climbing the corporate ladder And along the way I bought all of the things that I thought would make me happy Those things never did their job Then I bought gifts for other people I thought that would make them happy But they weren't any happier a week later, two weeks later, three weeks later The gift isn't going to make someone else happier A new thing isn't going to make you happy Happiness is your default state The things can get in the way of it Or it can amplify what was already going on inside you It can magnify your joy But it can't create it, there's no happiness out there It's always right here, right now Speaking of right here, right now, I've got our right here, right now segment We talk about one thing that's going on in the life of the minimalists Before we do that, I want to talk about one other thing that was crazy for me for Black Friday On October 31st was Halloween this year and every year I got my first Black Friday email and then I got another one the next day One was from an air filter company One was from a hosting company, a name registration, domain name registration company Now first off, can you imagine I'm going to, I really need to buy air filters for someone for Christmas So I'm getting a Black Friday deal and I said happy Black Friday, it was Halloween And then the next day I get something from this domain registration company And I'm thinking like creating urgency around these things There's nothing wrong with air filters, I have some, we have some right here in the studio And if you go to theminimalists.com, I have a domain as well, right? I don't have a problem with those things, but I don't understand the need for everyone to have to participate In this Black Friday impulse Save money, or at least perceive that you're going to save money on these things that you're going to buy anyway We're going to force you into buying this a little bit earlier so we can change the books of our corporation at the end of Q4 Anyway, we'll get back to talking about Black Friday, I still have an entire switchboard of callers that I'd like to talk to But first real quick for right here, right now, here's one thing that's going on in the life of the minimalist We have two live events coming up, here in Southern California, one this weekend Black Friday weekend in Orange County And then the last Sunday of the year in Los Angeles, right down the street from our studio here in West Hollywood Over at the Greenway Court Theater And these are going to be our two last events for a while, we've been doing Sunday symposium every single month And it's time for us to take a bit of a break So if you want to see us at a live event, we're going to plan some stuff for next year We don't know exactly what we're going to do yet, Savvy D and TK and Ryan and Sean and I We're all trying to get together and figure out reimagining what live events look like going forward Because we want to lean into that, but we're going to take a break right now so we can discover all the lessons we've learned from the last few years Doing these Sunday symposiums every month And to be honest with you, it's my favorite thing that we do, these live events I just get so much joy from the interactions with other people And it's not joy from them, it brings that joy out from me and I see that with them as well And all kinds of people show up to these events, people often come by themselves I would say 40% of the people who arrive there show up by themselves and many of those people meet new friends Many of them meet long-term friends, they meet a community of people And so I want to be able to provide that And so if you want to attend one of these events, the tickets are free SundaySymposium.com, we will be in Orange County this weekend And the final Sunday of the year in Los Angeles before we take that break We'd love to see you there, you can grab your free tickets at SundaySymposium.com Speaking of gifts, I don't have any discount for you, I don't have a Black Friday door buster sale But a quick reminder for you Patreon has made it possible to gift a subscription of the Minimalist's private podcast to anyone So if you have a friend or a family member or a loved one who might benefit from our long-form private maximal episodes Visit patreon.com slash the Minimalists to gift them a month, several months or up to an entire year of the private podcast You can also sponsor a future member of our community to help those people who can't afford to subscribe We have a list of people who are waiting for a scholarship or a gift from someone else So if you want to give the gift of less, you can gift a subscription to the Minimalist's private podcast to someone you know Or to someone you don't know at all, patreon.com slash the Minimalist You can find all the details over there Alright, much more coming up, but first here's a quick minimalist tip from one of our listeners Hey Minimalist, this is Chris and I'm a Patreon subscriber from Fargo, North Dakota On occasion in this podcast, the 90s crime noir film Heat has been referenced And specifically how Robert Nunez's character, the master thief Neil McCully, is portrayed in the film as a minimalist In the film we see how his beautiful home is completely empty without positions And he is indeed selective of all the people he lets enter into his life Even to the point of echoing a mantra of, don't let yourself get attached to anything when you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat If you feel the heat around the corner De Niro's character may remind us all of the expectations we have of what a minimalist is But I encourage listeners to think of the villain Roger Van Zant in the film And how I dare say it, as portrayed by William Fickner may, just may bear a striking resemblance to corporate world Josh Ironically, Neil McCully, De Niro's character in the film, eliminates Roger Van Zant, played by Fickner Furthermore, symbolizing the end of the corporate world Josh and a minimalist lifestyle is all that remains De Niro's character's mantra in the film may have been the belief he had been holding onto that shielded him from doing the development he needed to feel fulfilled in his life Have a great day I agree, your willingness to walk away from anything is an important minimalist principle I will talk about it a bit today on page 2 The willingness to walk away from some of these holiday traditions, just so you can walk into new traditions We have to walk into a new tradition at all, but no longer signing up, because that's what we do every year We sign up again and again and again, we renew our subscription to holiday consumerism And we wonder why we're so miserable, I keep paying for this thing I don't want I'm wasting my time, my attention, my money, and why am I doing it? Oh, by the way, everyone else around me is kind of miserable with this whole holiday consumerism thing too They would also like to opt out, maybe we should all band together And we just have a family meeting or a friends meeting And we meet at a coffee shop or we meet in the living room and we say, alright guys, let's face it A lot of the holiday season is super joyous and I want to participate in that But a lot of it is stressing me out, are you guys feeling this too? Oh yeah, okay What can we walk away from this holiday season that would make it more meaningful? For anyone else who has a listener tip or insight about this episode or any other episode You can send a voice memo to podcast at theminnalists.com So we can feature your voice on the show Up next, page 2 and page 3 But first, let's take a quick pandiculation break, we'll be right back Alright, that's the first 37% of episode 515 We'll see you on Patreon for the full 2 hour maximal edition Which includes answers to a bunch more questions, questions like What does the perfect minimalist workspace look like? How freeing can it be to minimize 100% of your holiday decorations? And what does Charlie Sheen's new minimalist lifestyle look like now? Plus a million more questions and simple living segments over on the minimalist private podcast on Patreon The link is in the description When you subscribe, you can listen to our private podcast episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app Plus you'll gain access to all of our podcast archives all the way back to the very first episode That's a decade ago, next month, 10 years of the minimalist you can enjoy there over on Patreon And that is our minimal episode for today Big thanks to Earthing Studios for the recording space On behalf of Ryan Nicodemus, TK Coleman, Post-Production Peter, Spire Jeff and Spire Dave, Jordan No More, Tomcat, Professor Sean, Savvy D and the rest of our team I'm Joshua Fields-Milburn If you leave here today with just one message Let it be this Love people And use things Because the opposite Ever works Thanks for listening y'all, we'll see you next time