The truth is that nearly all the pressure we feel is completely internal. (Location 27)
Happiness comes from within, from inside yourself, from living a meaningful life. And that is what this book aims to help you discover. (Location 29)
First, we identified our anchors. We had discovered “getting what we wanted” (large houses, bigger paychecks, material possessions, and corporate awards) wasn’t making us happy, so we wanted to identify what was anchoring us—what was making us feel stuck and preventing us from growing. (Location 203)
Our next step was to identify our priorities. We started prioritizing by dividing our anchors into two categories: major anchors and minor anchors. (Location 209)
The point is minimalism is a tool to help you achieve freedom. Freedom from fear, freedom from worry, freedom from overwhelm, freedom from guilt, freedom from depression, freedom from enslavement. Freedom. Real freedom. (Location 300)
Minimalists search for happiness not through things, but through life itself; (Location 313)
Minimalism is a tool to eliminate life’s excess, focus on the essentials, and find happiness, fulfillment, and freedom. (Location 317)
eating and exercising. In other words: what we put into our bodies and what we do with our bodies. (Location 416)
getting healthy or living a healthy life (although, nearly 100% of the time, a person who starts living a healthier lifestyle starts looking better almost immediately, which is a fantastic bonus). (Location 421)
Meat. This one is controversial. We stopped eating meat as an experiment a few years ago and noticed phenomenal results, so we never went back (other than fish, which we discuss in the following sections). The best advice we can give you is to test it yourself—stop eating meat for at least ten days and notice the difference it makes. Then decide for yourself. (Location 459)
Amazing Grass Green Superfood, which contains a large chunk of the vitamins and nutrients you need every day. Just mix a tablespoon or two with ten ounces of water, drink it, and feel the difference. (Location 466)
You must eat a nutritional diet to be healthy. You must exercise regularly to be healthy. You must eliminate harmful substances. You must treat your body like it is your most precious possession—because it is. (Location 578)
1. Find great new relationships. 2. Transform your current relationships. 3. Change who you are. (Location 605)
Careers are dangerous because people invest so much of themselves into their careers that they establish an identity and a social status based upon their job title. (Location 836)
“I’m passionate about writing (or scrap-booking or rock climbing or whatever you’re passionate about).” (Location 851)
As it turns out, we discovered four main anchors in our own lives that were keeping us from pursuing our passions: identity, status, certainty, and money. (Location 908)
While these are acceptable answers to a different question (i.e., What do you do to earn a paycheck? or How do you spend the majority of your time?), they become problematic when we give these labels enough meaning to say That’s who I am as a person. (Location 912)
People get so wrapped up in their vocation as their identity that it’s hard for them to realize they are so much more—they are beautiful in so many ways. (Location 916)
Most people require vast amounts of certainty—far too much certainty—to feel safe, while other people (like, for example, professional skydivers and race car drivers) require very little certainty in their daily lives. (Location 949)
Certainty feels nice—it makes you feel comfortable, it makes you feel warm and fuzzy—but it’s sometimes the biggest underlying reason you don’t make the changes you want to make. (Location 952)
Second, you can associate more pleasure with the long-term fulfillment of pursuing your passions and living your mission. (Location 960)
When you boil it down, money is simply another layer of certainty. (Location 965)
The best way to remove the anchor of money is to give money less importance in your life. We were able to accomplish this by developing a detailed, five-step plan to regain control of our finances. (Location 969)
Instead of thinking of it as investing money, think of it as paying your future self. (Location 1005)
Said another way, passion is one half love, one half obsession. So what would you love to do each day? What would you be obsessed by? Where those intersect, that is your passion. (Location 1069)
The truth is someone is earning a living doing the thing you’re passionate about—doing the thing you obsessively love. (Location 1073)
We now make less money, and we sometimes put more hours into the work week than we did at our original corporate jobs, but we love what we do and we obsess over it, so it certainly doesn’t feel like a job. (Location 1092)
If you’re not growing, you’re dying; and if you’re dying, then, by definition, you’re not living a meaningful life. (Location 1109)
one in which you make the change a must in your life—not something you should change someday when it becomes convenient for you. Making these decisions can be easy or difficult, depending on one major factor: leverage. (Location 1126)
everything changed: we left our big corporate jobs, changed our diets, started exercising regularly, became healthy, strengthened our core relationships, made great new relationships, started cultivating our passions, and contributed to more people than we ever had before. (Location 1147)
What seemed impossible yesterday, will often seem easy tomorrow. So if you want to continue to grow, you must continue to raise your standards; (Location 1151)
It’s growth that makes you feel alive. (Location 1169)
As you grow, something amazing tends to happen: you have more of yourself to give. It’s an incredible cycle: the more you grow, the more you can help others grow; and the more you help others grow, the more you grow in return. (Location 1178)
but it’s important to note that donating your time to these types of activities is not the only way to contribute. (Location 1186)
In doing so, we both discovered the most rewarding part of our workday revolved around mentoring others: we felt the most fulfilled whenever we added value to other people’s lives. (Location 1188)
For some people this category includes activities like playing a sport, teaching a child how to ride a bike, snowboarding, going to a friend’s house to watch a football game, and the like. These are often the best and most effortless experiences (Location 1236)
that morning exercise will start your day the right way, give you great momentum and energy for the day ahead, and will certainly serve you better than half an hour of sleep. (Location 1252)
It’s not easy to stay at home at night obsessively working on your passion while all your friends and coworkers are grabbing drinks at the local bar; (Location 1257)
Try this: think of a way you could contribute beyond yourself (preferably in a way you’ve never contributed before). If you’re at a loss, use the website we gave you earlier in this chapter: volunteermatch.org. (Location 1273)
Unless you contribute beyond yourself, your life will feel perpetually self-serving. It’s okay to operate in your own self-interest, but doing so exclusively creates an empty existence. (Location 1288)
Minimalism is a tool to eliminate life’s excess and focus on the essentials. Therefore, this book is about minimalism, because this book is about focusing on the five essential areas of life. By embracing minimalism in other aspects of life (your possessions, your work, etc.), you can focus on the most important things in life (the Five Values). (Location 1346)
tasks: How could this task positively affect one or more of the five important areas of my life? (Location 1354)
There’s nothing wrong with watching TV per se, but if it consumes a large amount of your time, then it can be detrimental to living a meaningful life. (Location 1356)
Success = Happiness + Constant Improvement (Location 1383)