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SALT LAKE CITY — In 2009, Joshua Millburn’s mother died. The death made him rethink his life choices and how they had affected his present happiness. He had a high-profile job, a six-figure salary and loads of debt. He was consumed by consumption and started to think maybe the opposite was the answer.
Millburn spoke with his friend Ryan Nicodemus, and the two embarked on a quest to eliminate literal, mental and emotional clutter from their lives. A successful blog and one book later, the duo has released a second epistle, “Everything That Remains,”, about their journey.
“It’s less of a how-to, more of a why-to,” Millburn said, “to bridge the gap from living a discontented life to living a more deliberate, more meaningful life.”
The latest volume gets personal about Millburn’s journey to clear his house and mind and reach a state of calm he hadn’t experienced in years.
“Warts and all, it’s all in there,” Millburn said.
He said one of the things he had the hardest time giving up was his identity in terms of answering the question “what do you do.”
“I had to change my answer to that question in order to stop identifying so much with what I did to earn a paycheck,” Millburn said. “Instead of saying what I did for a living, I started telling people, ‘I’m really passionate about writing.’ Then I’d flip the question and say, ‘what are you passionate about?’ ”
The minimalist movement is not merely about stuff but about getting on a personal level with people and discarding the superficiality of so many relationships.
“Now as a minimalist, everything I own adds value to my life or brings me joy,” Millburn said. “Once I started getting rid of the stuff, that was the first step. It allowed me to focus on what was important in my life — my health, my relationships, people I loved the most.”
Millburn said he enjoys touring and is particularly excited to come to Utah for its beauty and impressive music scene. A resident of Montana, Millburn said he regularly makes the trip to Velour and Kilby Court to enjoy some of his favorite artists.
“Joshua James, Isaac Russell, Parlor Hawk, The Moth & The Flame — there are a bunch of amazing musicians,” Millburn said. “And the people there are really awesome — they’re overly nice, but not in a way that’s patronizing.”
Reading through their website, with posts like “The UnAmerican Dream,” “Killing the Internet At Home Is The Most Productive Thing I’ve Ever Done” and “I Was Not A Minimalist, Until I Was,” it can make you question your own practices. On their site they have a 21-day guide to becoming a minimalist, including digitizing, donating and trashing unnecessary items.
You can meet the minimalists and get their new book at Sam Weller Book Works Tuesday, April 15, at 7 p.m.
