The Minimalists’ Message

Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus want you to ask yourself one question: How would your life be better if you owned less stuff?

“There’s nothing inherently wrong with the possessions,” Millburn said. “It’s the meaning we give to those things.”

We all know how to clean out a closet, but knowing the purpose behind throwing away all those cardigans and shoes that make it impossible to find what you are looking for is far more important.

“The benefits of knowing why help us declutter our lives, not just our things,” said Millburn, a former retail regional manager.

The duo’s less-is-more philosophy has resonated with fans across the country. Known as The Minimalists, they have written books and essays and traveled the country sharing their lifestyle philosophy. They stopped in Las Vegas March 22 at the Arts Factory to talk to a large crowd of practicing and potential minimalists about their latest book, “Everything That Remains.”

The longtime friends are about halfway through their 100-city tour. They are filming a documentary of their experience on the road as well as the people that come to hear them speak.

“We have met and interviewed some interesting, cool minimalists and different people from different walks of life,” Millburn said.

The biggest surprise for these two 30-somethings is who this message resonates with.

In St. Louis, an 83-year-old great-grandmother brought three generations to absorb the lifestyle gurus’ message.

“She wanted (them) to understand (having) less,” he said, “it can be better than wanting more.”

In Albuquerque, an 11-year-old boy pulled his father into the movement, hoping he would change his hoarder ways.

“He told his dad maybe this minimalists thing will help you out,” Millburn said. “And the dad said that he grew up this way, but strayed away from it and it sounds so right.”

In another city, an Occupy Wall Street organizer and a CEO of a major corporation both came to The Minimalists talk with one thing on their minds.

“They were asking the same fundamental questions,” he said. “The CEO had four houses and he experienced a particular kind of discontent, and the Occupy Wall Street guy, who had to decide if he should buy jeans or pay rent, had the same questions. It resonates with such a wide group of people.”

And the response from fans has resonated with Millburn.

“I feel we’re on the right (path),” he said.

German-American architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is credited with starting the minimalist movement in the early 20th century with his “less is more” philosophy on design.

Minimalism in the home is more a principal than a visual style.

“Editing your accessories and furnishings and having the most precious and significant items that are personal to you eliminates the chaos and restores serenity and calm,” said local designer Kimberly Joi McDonald, owner and principal of Designing Joi, LLC.

“Minimalism is still very popular. All of design is a lifestyle contingent upon the person’s taste.”

Millburn and Nicodemus surreptitiously stumbled across the idea of minimalism at the same point in their lives a few years ago. As successful corporate executives, each had large homes in expensive neighborhoods, cars and all the trappings of their stations.

Through tragic and life-changing events in a small amount of time, separately they each realized there is a difference between reverence for your objects and being held prisoner by them.

The events of Millburn’s life made him reconsider what the definition of home is. Five years ago, Millburn’s mother, recently diagnosed with cancer, died and his marriage ended, both within the same month.

“I looked around and saw I had spent all my focus on achievement, success and accumulation of things that I thought would make me happy,” Millburn said.

He concluded that all he had obtained during his hard-fought success, the house, the cars, the big office, weren’t doing their jobs.

“Even though I was making money, I was spending even more money,” he said. “I was just overwhelmed by life and this pursuit of happiness and, the closer I got, the farther away from happiness I got.”

He knew he had to reassess.

He moved from his home in Ohio to be close to his mother in Florida as she underwent treatment for cancer.

“Over those months we never talked about her stuff,” Millburn said.

After she passed, he realized he was in charge of all those things she had collected over more than six decades.

“And there were three apartments of stuff in her apartment,” Millburn said.

He rented a storage locker and had to wait a week to rent a truck big enough to haul his mother’s collection of stuff.

While he waited, he took a look around. Under her bed were four boxes.

“They were sealed boxes,” he said. “They hadn’t been opened in a long time.”

Inside were his papers, pictures and awards from elementary school.

“She was holding on to the memories that were in them,” Millburn said.

It was his first big minimalist moment.

“It hit me,” Millburn said. “I realized the memories are not in the thing, they are in us.”

It made letting go so much easier.

“I realized I was doing the same thing,” he said. “I was putting all this stuff in a huge box with a padlock.”

He canceled the truck and storage unit and spent the next 12 days having an estate sale. He donated the money he made to charities that had assisted his mom through her chemotherapy and radiation treatments.

“Once I realized (her things) got value by being used by other people, I realized I was selfish in keeping them (locked up),” Millburn said.

He returned to Ohio with a few boxes of photos and had a scanning party.

“There’s a lot of technology that makes it easy to keep (personal) items,” he said. “You don’t have to keep them in a box under your bed.”

Consumerism has gotten away from its original intent.

“We’ve made this shift from marketing to fulfilling a need to creating a false need within us,” Millburn said. “As an entire culture, now we manifest things we think we need. The truth is, minimalism allowed me to figure out what I really do need. Does this thing add value to my life?”

That bleeds over into other areas of his life as well. Minimalism in his living space is a physical manifestation of his internal struggle to maintain clutter in his emotional life.

“I think that’s what we are all looking for,” he said. “How can I live more meaningfully? In my case, what is important in my life?”

But he understands fans that can’t quite make the commitment.

“I’m not immune to it,” he said. “I was in the throes of consumerism.”

Many people approach him with the question, how do I ignore these feelings of want after I’ve ditched my consumer ways?

Millburn is serious when he says he considers every thing in his life. Every thing.

“Even before sending a tweet, I ask myself if it is going to add value,” he said. “It’s about more than possessions; it’s about reaching into your value system. What are you valuing in your life?”

If anything, Millburn would like people to consider one basic principle. It’s pretty simple.

“Love people and use things,” he said, “because the opposite never works.”