When you hear the word 'minimalism',
you might think of art,
music,
fashion,
or architecture and decor.
But in this video, I want to talk about minimalism
as a lifestyle,
how letting go of stuff changed my life,
and how it might help yours.
But don't worry -- it doesn't really look like this.
The idea of simple living has been around for thousands of years,
but the modern minimalist movement really started around 2006
with bloggers like Leo Babauta.
Leo, along with others, wrote about the benefits of decluttering
and promoted the idea that we could find contentment
if we focused on less.
Leo: And so I said,
"There really needs to be someone writing about this more,"
and so I created my blog, 'Mnmlist', which is
the word 'minimalist' without a couple of the vowels. [laughs]
But uh,
I'm like, I need -- I want to promote the conversation around minimalism.
Matt: Leo wrote in an early blog post in January 2007,
"An ongoing quest for me, and one that I am renewing this year,
is to eliminate all that is unnecessary from my life."
According to minimalists, by removing things
from our lives that don't add value or bring joy,
we can experience a lot of benefits...
Like better financial security,
reduce stress,
it can help to clarify our passions,
and allow for more quality time with family and friends.
But only you can decide what's worth keeping.
Natalie: Can we throw this out?
Matt: Don't touch that!
It's, in part, a reaction to the rise of a thing called
conspicuous consumption,
an idea first noticed by the early nineteenth century economist,
Thorstein Veblen.
He observed how the affluent spent money on things
to publicly display their wealth,
using it as a way to boast their social power and prestige.
And how times have changed.
As packed malls made way for one-click shopping,
goods became cheaper to make,
advertisers spent billions to sell them,
and our ability to boast our prestige moved to social media,
there was a clusterfuck of a tornado
that was pushing all of us in one direction:
to buy more stuff.
Then these bloggers come along and talk about their experiments
with simple living and all of a sudden,
minimalism was making a comeback.
Two of those early bloggers were Josh and Ryan from The Minimalists.
And they noticed from the very beginning that minimalism had a PR problem.
People naturally think it's about going to the extreme:
getting rid of everything you own down to a loin cloth.
But Josh and Ryan proved that that's simply not true.
That's why I'm here at their studio in Los Angeles
to show you guys what it really looks like to be a minimalist.
Ryan: -- he directed Minimalism.
Matt: (What the fuck)?
[BEEP]
Josh: Sorry about that.
The... A/C is broken. Ryan: Yeah. Yeah.
Matt: We talked about what the movement looked like early on.
Josh: When I first stumbled across minimalism it was just--
it was a few different people,
many of whom were single world-travelers.
And while I admired that,
it wasn't how I wanted to set my life up.
I like owning a kitchen table,
I like having a coffee table,
I like having a desk to write on.
And their lifestyle
wasn't necessarily the lifestyle I wanted to mimic.
But
as we first started looking into
different minimalists -- or I started --
I found, not just people like Colin Wright,
who owned fifty-two things and travelled the world,
but people like Leo or Courtney Carver or Joshua Becker.
Matt: All these people that Josh discovered
lived very different lives.
Some of them had kids, some didn't.
Some had full-time careers,
others worked for themselves.
Some lived in tiny houses
and others lived in average-size homes.
Since everyone's interests, values, and lives are different,
we all own different things.
And on top of that, our lives are constantly changing
so what we own today might not be what we own tomorrow.
But if we don't make decisions about what to keep,
by default, we will hold on to everything.
And we'll be left with sheds,
storage lockers, attics, and basements
packed with stuff.
The key though is to not take it too far.
If you get rid of things that you truly enjoy,
then you're doing it wrong.
Ryan: So it's funny 'cause people will inevitably like come up to us and they'll be like,
"I love books and I've got a nice big library and
I love the way the books smell,
I love turning the pages, I love how they feel,
I love lending them out to my friends
and then we talk about the books later!"
And I'm like, "Hey -- keep your books! [laughs]
It sounds like you get a lot of value out of your books."
Leo: If you look at minimalism or any of these experiments as deprivation,
that's suffering and who wants to make themselves suffer? [laughs] Right?
So minimalism should not ever be about
depriving yourself of good things,
of things that you love.
Matt: It starts with the material things
but it doesn't end there.
The biggest question for you to ask yourself right now:
how much time are you spending on stuff you don't really care about?
Have you taken the time to get clear on your values?
If you don't create your own definition of success,
someone else will do it for you.
Ryan: I never really stopped to think about what it was
that I wanted out of my life.
I-- I didn't even realize it until it was too late that I was
really living my life for, uh-- for other people.
It was-- it was look at me look at this awesome job that I have!
Look at this home that I have! I got three bedrooms,
I got two living rooms, there's only one of me!
Joshua: Aren't you impressed by me?
Ryan: Yeah, exactly! It was -- it was about, um
it was about impressing the wrong people honestly.
Matt: And this is where I personally found the biggest benefit in embracing minimalism.
Sure it's nice to have a clutter-free home, but I was able to completely change
my focus and re-define my idea of success.
Matt: I graduate shortly after the global financial crisis in 2010.
I moved back home to live in my parents' basement with $97,000 in student loans,
and I looked at my life and I felt like a failure
because I didn't have all of the things I thought I was supposed to have:
the luxury car, the house, the tech gadgets that everybody seemed to have.
And it took finding these blogs. I started reading Leo,
Josh, Ryan and a bunch of other minimalists, and I started to think
differently about my values.
And I flipped my idea of success completely on its head.
To me it was no longer about acquiring the things or achieving a certain status in society.
For me, it was about finding work that I was really passionate about.
It was about being able to make a full-time living as a filmmaker, spending more time with family
and friends, and experiences,
focusing on my health.
It took a while until I was able
to truly be content. To be happy.
But it started in that moment.
Now, this is not a Magic Bullet,
minimalism isn't gonna fix all your problems.
But I can say with absolute certainty that I wouldn't be where I am today
without minimalism and without asking these really deep questions about what I want out of life.
Whether you want to call yourself a minimalist or not,
it doesn't matter. But I think that everyone can gain something
from making more intentional decisions with how they live their lives.
Maybe we just spend too much time focusing on that word.
Josh: For me the '-ism' is less important -- you can call it 'minimalism',
I think its the perfect word, I also think it's the most imperfect word because
sometimes it scares off people, sometimes it scares people enough to actually make some changes
which is great but if it's too austere of a word, you can say 'essentialism',
you can say 'intentionalism', you can say living within your means-ism.
Whatever '-ism' you want to use,
it really has to do with living a more meaningful life.
Matt: Thanks for watching. If you want to get access
to the full forty-minute interview with Josh and Ryan from The Minimalists,
you can get it on Patreon.
Matt: What are you guys doing? Oh, is this like-- Everyone: [laughs]
Matt: Is that Instagram Live?! Oh no!
Matt: Patreon is how I'm able keep this Youtube channel 100% ad-free.
I release videos every month on lifestyle design, minimalism, and film-making.
I'm actually working to release a video this week about how I made this video.
So, breaking down how I turned my apartment
into a full-fledged studio.
Matt: Alright, so things are a little bit crazy in the bedroom right now.
This is-- this is what the bedroom looks like.
Matt: Again, thanks for watching and I will see you guys next week.