The average American sees 5,000 advertisements per day—each communicating a message to purchase more. Here then, are just a few short messages inspiring you to purchase less. As you find a quiet moment this weekend and a warm cup of coffee, consider again the life giving opportunity of owning less.
The Life-Giving Pursuit of Minimalism | Ignite Phoenix #14 by Joshua Becker. Own less. Live more. My 5-minute case for minimalism. Watch below.
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10 Life-Affirming Reasons to Embrace Simplicity | Slow Your Home by Brooke McAlary. Living with less stuff, less debt, less clutter means living with more freedom, more time, more joy.
Create More, Consume Less | The Minimalists by Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus. We’ve been so caught up in our consumeristic mindset that we’ve forgotten about our inherent need to create.
Sometimes, We Want Prices to Fool Us | The New York Times by Stephanie Clifford & Catherine Rampell. A fascinating article on the psychology of sales. Most consumers have no context for how much items should actually cost.
What Happens When You Really Disconnect | Harvard Business Review by Tony Schwartz. Overloading attention shrinks mental control.
Image: David Leggett
Love this video! You are on point!
A great collection of articles Joshua!
Have you ever stopped to consider how much of our lives are wasted in our endless pursuit stuff? The consumer cycle is bigger than you think! Your consumer purchases, be it a new kitchen, must-have gadget or luxurious holiday, commit you to working longer and longer hours, from which you recover by ‘treating’ yourself to more stuff, having seen it advertised on the tv show you were watching/magazine you had been reading/website you had been browsing/friend you had been visiting, so you spend some more of your time finding out if this is definitely the stuff you want to buy before spending some more time purchasing and collecting the stuff you wanted. Unfortunately it’s not long before the ‘feel good’ factor of the new stuff wanes and the cycle is repeated. If you’re really unfortunate you may have to work a little longer to pay for the interest that has accrued on an overdraft/credit card as you didn’t actually have the money to purchase it, if you’re just unfortunate then it’s likely that you’ll have to work a little bit longer down the line to pay the mortgage which you could have been paid off years earlier had you just owned a little less….you guessed it……STUFF!
LESS STUFF = MORE TIME (and a happier, simpler more contented life).
Consuming is not living.
I hope you might just remember this post the next time you’ve been blinded by an advertisement selling you something you don’t really need!
If you want to enjoy reading an inspiring blog about how to live a simple,
frugal, debt-free, minimalist life then please check out the
http://www.thedebtfreeminimalist.com.
My latest blogs include:
Are you a clutterist? Take the 5-a-day challenge (and i’m not talking fruit!)
The duvet which made a difference (a tale of giving)
Is the iPhone such a smart phone?
A tale of opportunity cost (and the effects of compound interest)
What ever happened to the idea of a 15-hour week? (A tale of priorities and the value of time)
Love the video Joshua — I’ve heard the story before but it always motivates me when I hear it!
Great “minimalist” speech on minimalism, Joshua.
As always, thanks for sharing these Weekend Read links.
Thanks for the Phoenix talk Joshua, that was awesome. As a reader of your blog I knew the 2008 spring afternoon story but it was great to hear it out loud from you with time to flesh in the details. At 57 I’ve started my journey to minimalism.
One of the things I am so grateful for is that my fiance said he didn’t want a television in our home when would be married.
That was fifteen years ago.
It’s so much better than you’d think and not hard.
We live such a quieter life–well, not that quiet with the kiddos;)—but quieter in the sense of no constant assault of noise and commercials. You can’t miss what you never see.
Our music is on CD on the computers and we block all the ads and images we can. It’s made such a difference.
I think we are able to be so much more content than we would be with television and radio.
Try it!
Years ago, I got a ticket because I made a right hand turn at a light where a sign was posted that it was illegal to make a right hand turn. This isn’t an excuse, but the next time I approached this interaction I focused all of the bits information that were bombarding me. Multiple lights and signs made it easy to shut down visually if you will. Of course, once I was aware of the sign about turning, I always saw it first. Anyway, to the point, because we are bombarded by so much information, are our collective minds just glassing over to the point that nothing gets in?
This is a fantastic point, Cathy. Reading a parking sign alone takes such a huge amount of visual literacy skills it’s amazing anyone achieves it successfully. Can you imagine what it is like out there in a world of visuals for people who struggle to read or interpret symbolic images?