Worthy

I often feel unworthy. I face this feeling when I write on serious topics. I question whether I’m qualified to write about certain subjects, conjuring a tornado of negative thoughts: I’m not perfect. I’m not a Zen master. I’m not Dr. Nicodemus. I’m not worthy.

I could blame my upbringing for this psychological defect. I wasn’t encouraged to be more than I was. However, I clearly remember being told what I wasn’t. Whenever I catch myself inside this whirlwind of negative thought, I recognize what I’m doing and redirect my self-talk toward a more positive direction. Instead of what “I’m not” I focus on what “I am”: I am kind. I am genuine. I am adding value. I am worthy.

Our level of self-worth is directly affected by the rules we’ve built for ourselves. If you have a rule for yourself that says “I am not a baker if I don’t own a bakery,” then guess what—you’re not going to feel worthy enough to call yourself a baker until you open a bakery.

Most of our internal rules have been shaped by years of reinforcement. That doesn’t mean we have to live by those rules for the rest of our lives, though. When we catch ourselves feeling unworthy, we should look for the rule we’ve established that makes us feel this way.

Regardless of what we’ve done in our pasts, we still get to decide our own levels of self-worth based on the rules we’ve established. As long as you are living up to those rules, you are worthy

– Ryan Nicodemus

[Read more inspiring essays from The Minimalists]

Blogs, Books, and Businesses, Oh My!

Ever thought about writing a book, creating a blog, or starting your own small business? More than likely, the answer is yes.

We’ve have the good fortune of meeting thousands of people since starting The Minimalists, listening to countless stories of transition—folks plunging into new businesses and books and blogs. Often times, though, when it comes to creating something new and meaningful, folks get tangled in the details, unsure where to turn for guidance. So they give up before their feet are off the ground.

But fear not, ambitious reader. We have three comprehensive resources that’ll help you turn your idea—whether blog-, book-, or business-related—into a tangible reality…

Creating a Blog: If you’ve ever thought about starting a blog, now’s a great time to take action and actually start one. Best of all, it’s easier than ever. You see, we were clueless two years ago when we started The Minimalists, but, over time, we figured out what it takes to forge a successful blog. We show you how we did it, step by step by step, in this free, thorough essay: How to Start a Successful Blog Today.

Writing and Publishing a Book: So, you’re one of those people who has a book inside them, eh? Let’s get that book out of you, onto the page, and in front of readers. In this free six-part series, Asymmetrical Press shows you How to Write and Publish an Indie Book. (Temporary writing note: if you are thinking about taking Joshua’s final writing class, there are only two seats left.)

Starting a Small Business: Ready to earn some income on the side? Hope to transition from the corporate world to self-employment? Want to do work that’s more meaningful than just earning a paycheck? Our good friend Courtney Carver gives guidance in How to Create a Microbusiness That Matters.

Today sounds like a great day to get started. You already have the idea, and you should never leave the scene of a good idea without taking action… [Read more on The Minimalists]

 

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THE THINGS WE ARE PREPARED TO WALK AWAY FROM

Courtesy of The Minimalists

What are you prepared to walk away from? This oft-unasked question shapes one of the most important principles in my life.

We are all familiar with the age-old hypothetical situation in which our home is burning and we must grab only the things that’re most important to us. Of course most of us would not dash into the inferno and reach for material things first; we’d ensure the safety of our loved ones and pets. Then, once our loved ones were safe, we’d grab only the irreplaceable things. Say, photo albums, computer hard drives, family heirlooms. Everything else would be lost in the conflagration.

I tend to look at this situation a tad differently, though, taking the hypothetical a bit further…

There is a scene in Heat in which Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) says, “Allow nothing in your life that you cannot walk out on in 30 seconds flat.” Although my life isn’t anything like McCauley’s (he’s the movie’s bad guy), I share his sentiment (for the most part). That is to say, almost everything I bring into my life—material possessions, ideas, habits, and even relationships—I must be able to walk away from at a moment’s notice.

Many of you will disagree with me because this ideology might sound crass or insensitive to you, but I’d like to posit to you that it is actually the opposite: our preparedness to walk away is the ultimate form of caring.

If I purchase new possessions, I need to make certain that I don’t assign them too much meaning. Being able to walk away means that I won’t ever get too attached to my belongings. And being unattached to stuff… Read more on The Minimalists

A SINGLE TWEET CHANGED MY LIFE

I never asked for this. I stumbled into minimalism serendipitously, haphazardly, not knowing what I was looking for. It was unintentional at first.

The year was 2009, early autumn. As the leaves resisted their change in color, my dying mother resisted the division of cancer cells in her body as they metastasized beyond her lungs to other vital organs and, eventually, her brain.

A month after she passed, my marriage ended abruptly, and I didn’t know which way was up anymore. All I knew was that I wasn’t happy. I had worked unimaginably hard for more than a decade, chasing happiness around every bend, but the faster I ran, the farther away it was.

As my twenties twilighted, I went searching for answers, looking for anything to help me figure it all out. At that point, any answer would’ve sufficed.

Then in November 2009, a single tweet changed my life. Someone I followed on Twitter, which I hadn’t used much up to that point, shared a link to a video from a young Midwesterner named Colin Wright. Don’t ask me why, but for some reason I felt compelled to click the link… [Read more at The Minimalists]

Not Busy, Focused

We are busier than ever. It almost goes without saying. We live in a busy world in which our value is oft-measured in productivity, efficiency, work rate, output, yield, GTD, the rat race. We are inundated with meetings and spreadsheets and status updates and rush-hour traffic and tweets and conference calls and travel time and text messages and reports and voicemails and multitasking and all the trappings of a busy life. Go, go, go. Busy, busy, busy.

Busy has become the new social norm. In fact, if you’re not busy, especially in today’s workplace, you’re often thought of as lazy, unproductive, inefficient, a waste of space.

For me, however, busy is a curse word. Each time I hear it, I wince as if nails are traversing a long chalkboard. Worse, I grimace involuntarily whenever someone accuses me of being busy, my facial features contorting and writhing in mock pain. I respond to this ill-informed accusation the same way each time: ”I’m not busy, I’m focused.”

It was Henry David Thoreau who famously said, ““It is not enough to be busy. The question is: what are we busy about?” And if I were to append his quandary, I’d say: It is not enough to be busy. The question is: what are we focused on?

You see, there is a vast delta between being busy and being focused. The former involves the typical tropes of productivity—anything to keep our hands moving, to keep going, to keep the conveyer belt in motion. It is no coincidence that we refer to mundane or asinine tasks as “busywork.” Busywork works great for factories and robots and fascism, but not so great for anyone who’s attempting to do something meaningful with their waking hours.

Being focused, on the other hand… Read more on The Minimalists

Repaying Intellectual Debt

 

Image courtesy of The Minimalists

 

How does one repay an intellectual debt?

We recently received this question in a kind, handwritten letter from a reader named Suravi. She wanted to know how to pay back the value we’ve added to her life. She wondered how she could repay us for sharing our thoughts, for sharing our journey, for helping her see that the option she’d been given wasn’t the only option in life.

Our answer: don’t pay it back, pay it forward.

Truth be told, there are several people who’ve helped the two of us become the men we are today, people whose words and ideas have shaped who we are, people whom we’ll never be able to compensate for the value they’ve provided—the type of value that isn’t labeled with a price tag.

So instead of requiting those people, we choose to pay it forward. Hence, we go to great lengths to share our story, to document our myriad changes, so people can discover  alternative paths toward happiness. With the exception of our books, the vast majority of what we write is free, which is our small way to contribute to the world.

You see, some debts you can repay only by traversing the world with kindness and respect and intentionality. Such truisms might sound trite or cliche, but they become self-evident once you consider the  value already bestowed upon you and begin to pay it forward.

 

Last chance reminder: As a Decade Fades is free for one more day (7/3).

Read more valuable content on The Minimalists

 

EVERYTHING I OWN: MY 288 THINGS

Original article posted in March, 2013

I own more than you might think.

This essay is probably just my involuted interpretation of Dave Bruno’s The 100 Thing Challenge. However, it is not about “counting your stuff.” Essentially it’s just a parody. But it’s also about being conscious about what you own, it’s about having only things you frequently use, and, ultimately, it’s about appreciating what you have because you have less stuff.

Other minimalists have taken this challenge to the extreme, among these brave souls are Colin Wright and his 51 things, Leo Babauta and his 50 things, Tammy Strobel and her 72 things, Nina Yau and her very impressive 47 things, et al. There are also brave minimalists like Joshua Becker and Sam Spurlin who don’t really participate in counting their stuff, possibly because this game of counting your stuff is implicitly competitive. And, to be clear, if I were to treat this as a competition, it would be a losing proposition for me (viz. my entry into such a competition would be like Manute Bol trying to play ice hockey—I would not win). [Read more at The Minimalists]

A Well-Edited Life

 

David

Everyone develops their own creative process over time.

Some sculptors, Bernini for instance, build sculptures with clay. Others, like Michelangelo, carve from marble. Though I’m no Michelangelo, my creative process tends to mimic the latter, building way too much and then removing massive amounts of excess until I uncover the beauty beneath the banality.

I call this process Subtractive Creation. Unlike most carving sculptors, though, I also have to quarry the marble from which I pitch, chisel, and polish.

The essays on this site are published with around 400 words, even though they often start with 2,000 or more. My novel was 950 pages before it entered the world with only 283. The current book I’m editing, a memoir called Everything That Remains, is 550 pages, though I hope to whittle it down to fewer than 200.

When I edit this way, the final result is far more meaningful—to me, to the reader. The care and handcraftedness shows in the final work. I teach my writing students how to edit this way, too; that is, how to spend 1/3 of their time writing effectively and 2/3 of their time editing, shaping their work into something more concise, more powerful, more beautiful. [Read more on The Minimalists]

Minimalism Is Not the Path

 

The path I’m walking down is not the minimalist path. No, I’m not headed toward some abstract thing called minimalism—never was, in fact.

Rather, the path I’m traversing is one that leads to happiness, growth, actual freedom (not the kind of “freedom” marketed to us on our TVs).

Hence, minimalism is simply the tool I used to clear that path, to make it easier to find and then easier to travel. If you’re having trouble finding your own minimalist path, stop looking. Instead, search for contentment. Find that path—discover what will make you happy—and then allow minimalism to help you clear the clutter that’s keeping you from moving forward. [Read more on The Minimalists]

Dislike, Discomfort

I don’t do things I dislike, but I do do a lot of things that force me to feel discomfort.
If I dislike an activity—if I don’t enjoy it—then I find a way to unfasten it from my daily life.

I’m serious about growth, though. So I often place myself in situations that help me grow. These little stoical experiments frequently make me uncomfortable.

The difference, then, has to do with timing. When something is new and unfamiliar, it is by definition not natural, not comfortable. In the long run, though, I don’t keep drudging through tasks I don’t enjoy. I move on to something new. Life is too short to do shit you dislike. [Read More on The Minimalists]