Every little thing you think that you need.
Every little thing you think that you need.
Every little thing that's just feeding your greed.
Oh, I bet that you'd be fine without it.
Yes.
Hello, everybody.
Welcome to the Minimalist Podcast, where we discuss what it means to live a meaningful life with less.
My name is Joshua Fields Milburn, and joining me here in beautiful West Hollywood California, is my good friend TK Coleman.
Hey, man, I'm smiling by choice.
This is Anthony DeMello's story that he tells about like, I can't wait for this party to be over.
I'll be so happy when I can take this smile off my face.
You're fresh off of a debate.
Yeah.
We'll talk about that on the right here right now segment.
You did this amazing debate in our studio here yesterday with Destiny a whole two and a half hour debate about morality.
We'll talk about that.
Also, we'll talk about we got our minimalist retreat coming back for twenty twenty six.
It's a three day event called Simple Haven in Ojai, California.
Only 30 people.
We had to sell out last time and we'll have 30 of you here in beautiful.
Southern California, under the oak trees with us at the Ojai Art Center.
We're going to spend three days together.
We'll talk about that as well.
But, coming up on this episode, we're talking about finding work-life balance, knowing when it's time to leave a job that is emotionally exhausting, ergonomic home office tips and much, much more.
Plus, on page three, we're going to talk about why you don't want new things and what you actually want instead.
Let's start with our callers.
If you'd like to be a part of the program.
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Our first question today is from Bella.
Hello, The Minimalist.
This is Bella.
I am calling from Modesto, California, and I am a Patreon.
My question is In regards to career clutter.
I basically have a job that requires me to get up at 530 to be there at seven.
I'm able to use my skills and love for nature.
I'm an interpreter at California State Park.
So basically, I interpret nature for children or visitors, just so they can learn and appreciate what's around them.
I go in at 7 a.m. and I get off at 5, which puts me getting home at like 545.
And I do work on the weekends.
I do get invited to hang out with friends and I want to hang out with them.
However, when I do go over there, I am completely drained.
And then I get home and I cry because I don't feel like I can mentally spend time with best friends, even my partner.
And it makes me think that I might need to quit my job.
So I guess I'm struggling with the fact that I might have to quit a job that I like because it is not balanced with everything else.
Thank you so much.
TK, on the surface, this feels like a work question.
I'm going to talk about work-life balance for sure, coming up on the lightning round during the Patreon community chats.
Question of the week.
But for Bella specifically, this is also a question just about exhaustion in general.
And you and I have a quote that we admire that no one else seems to admire.
You know where I'm going with this, right?
What is that quote? shake your love i just can't shake your love it always makes the quote always makes me think of that song debbie gibson it's uh what is it if you if you don't love your job job your love yes if you don't love your job job your love you sent the reel around where people were uh um, they were, they were playing around that, like, uh, don't, don't shut up, up the shed, you know, stuff like that.
I think Professor Sean said that to us.
And, um, I, I get it.
At first, like, you know, these minimal maxims are really hard to do it.
We make it look easy but we spend like a whole week trying to cobble together words and shave them down to their essence.
I call it panning for gold when I teach writing students about this is there's going to be a whole lot of sediment there, but we're going to find some gold somewhere.
In these words
And so when we give a minimal maximum like you can't change the people around you, but you can change the people around you you start to see light bulbs go off over people's heads.
But then sometimes you might say something that Nicodemus and I used to call a faux fundity, where at first it sounds profound.
But they're like, wait a minute.
Maybe that is nonsense.
Maybe it means nothing.
But you and I actually like this.
So there was a real going around.
I originally thought it was one of the Kardashians.
It turns out it wasn't.
I think it was from one of the real housewives of some city.
And she was saying on there, if you don't.
Love your job, job your love.
And everyone's like, oh, that is so stupid.
But you looked at it differently.
What did you hear when you heard that?
So I...
It sounded like a quote that I read many years ago in the book Way of the Peaceful Warrior.
And there was a movie made about this as well, where someone whose dreams basically died overnight because of an injury was no longer able to do the thing that he loved, that he spent all of his life loving.
And his mentor says to him in a really intense moment.
He says if you can't do what you love, you have to find the love in what you do.
St.
John of the Cross has this idea that sometimes we go into situations that seem to be devoid of love.
And in those moments, rather than just giving ourselves the option of looking for love, we can also become the love that people are looking for.
And so when I heard this statement if you don't love your job, job your love it just sounded to me like a way however imperfect— of saying that same thing.
Like if you're not in a situation where you can just do what you love.
Maybe find a way to make what you do more lovable, or find the elements in what you do that are capable of being an instrument of love.
It's similar to what Cal Newport talks about, where you know follow your passion.
That trips a lot of people up because it turns it into this intellectual puzzle where they're looking.
They're looking for their passion in an existing job.
And if they don't see it, it's like, oh no, I lose.
But he talks about the power that we have to manufacture meaning, right?
So you can do something that you tolerate but don't necessarily hate, and And you can find ways to make it more meaningful, find ways to add creativity.
So that is how I heard it.
And I know that when some people hear that, they're going to say, oh no, you're being way too kind, way too charitable.
And my question would be, but how do you know?
If I had the opportunity to express this understanding to the person who originally said it.
Would that person go, nah, I just said something stupid?
Or would they say, you know what?
That's exactly what I meant.
And then would we believe them or would we accuse them of lying?
How would you know?
But that's one way to hear it.
I never confirmed it with them, but that's what I thought of.
My pedantic self wants to be like, but job is not... not a verb.
Right, right, right, right.
But it's like, okay, but we turn nouns into verbs all the time, right?
And maybe it is not a commonly accepted one yet, but I actually heard it differently from the way you hear it.
I love your interpretation.
Mine is.
Hey, I think about my own life.
When I was back in the corporate world, I no longer loved my job.
So I had to job my love, meaning I had a love for writing.
Could I turn the thing that I was passionate about into my career?
That isn't where Bella is.
She has something that she's passionate about, but be careful when you turn that into a career.
And it's requiring from her 60, 70, or maybe more hours per week.
She said she has to wake up at 5.30 in the morning.
She doesn't get home till almost six o'clock at night.
So that's about 12 hours right there every day, Monday through Friday.
She says, I also have to work weekends.
And so-
At some point, the things that you really enjoy become the things that you dislike.
And there are a few reasons for that.
One is there's just too much of it.
I really enjoy ice cream.
But if you force feed me ice cream all day, I'm going to feel repulsed by it. at some point.
Like, get this away from me.
I can't do this.
And it's not because the ice cream doesn't taste good.
It's because I have way too much of it for too long.
It's no longer precious because I have a steady drip of sugary goodness, right?
That is no longer good over a period of time.
So that's one way to sort of ruin a job.
The other is when it is some sort of passion.
And now you're forced to do it.
You have to do it as opposed to I get to do it.
And I think that's kind of where Bella might be right now.
She's like, man, I should like this.
But for some reason, I don't.
In my own experience, TK, there was a time where I dreamed in my telecom days, early 20s.
I was about Savadakis.
Actually, I was younger than Savadakis over here.
And I was 22 years old.
I got my first promotion to store manager.
And it was at the time my dream job.
It quickly became my nightmare job.
Why was it my dream job?
Well, because of the expectations I had of it.
It would make me happy.
It would make me fulfilled.
I'm really going to enjoy this.
And part of that was true.
I was going to enjoy some of the things, but it's like a nostalgia when you look at backward and say oh, that was beautiful.
Everything's rose colored, right?
There's a forward looking sort of nostalgia as well.
We call it hope.
And it's like, oh, I hope this will delight me.
I hope this will fulfill me.
I hope this will make me happy.
And I see certain things that do comport with the version of me that I want to be, with my values, with my personage, with the person I would like to become.
And now I realize, oh, yeah, that is what I want.
But I'm discounting all the things that come with it that I might not want.
Like if you really like that ice cream.
But I tell you, but there's a little speck of poop somewhere in there.
You're not going to eat the ice cream.
No matter how delicious you might think it is, you're like, I just now I'm grossed out by it.
I didn't think about that.
And so for Bella, I'm wondering if she was one of your clutter counseling clients and she comes to you with this emotional exhaustion, what insights might you have for her?
Well, one would be to sort of piggyback a little bit on what you just said about how the relationship we have to what we love can be rendered unhealthy by establishing a rhythm that is not congruent to sustaining that love.
So we often think of getting paid to do what we love as the ultimate dream.
And it makes intuitive sense, because We have to do something to get paid and that's gonna take time.
And when what we love to do is separate from that, we always have to negotiate with the things that we get paid to do.
But if we can somehow bring those things together, it seems like hey, I get to get paid, but I also get to do what I love.
An awful lot, what a win.
We're good friends.
We enjoy having phone calls, having lunch together.
But imagine if the basis for our friendship changed and we had to enter into an agreement that said we must eat lunch every day together, Monday through Friday.
In addition to that, we need to be in the same physical space nine to five.
In addition to that, we need to talk every Monday on Zoom at noon or something like that, where I report what I'm working on and you report what you're working on.
This sounds fun.
I'm in.
I'll sign the contract.
Yeah, right.
That's so great.
I know there's a part of you that's telling the truth.
There is a part of me.
And that's actually the problem is this is the store manager thing.
Yeah.
Where it's like, oh, yeah, that sounds great.
And then in practice, it's way less great than when I hyped it up to be in my mind.
That's right.
And that's never the rhythm that our friendship had.
And it's difficult to notice when you offer me money.
Hey, how about I pay you to be Josh's friend?
What?
I'm already his friend for free.
I pay you.
But now you're paying me.
It's a win.
But it's not if we've got to get together every day for lunch at 9 to 5, because that doesn't honor the rhythm that keeps the passion aflame.
And so sometimes we have to ask ourselves that is getting paid for this?
The best way to honor the rhythm of the relationship I want to have with this, the rhythm that makes me happy and healthy.
And it's also important to remember that you don't have to get paid for it in order to make room for it in your life.
One of the reasons why you see so many young aspiring actors in LA work jobs at restaurants as servers.
It isn't because they love serving, it's because it's the kind of job that's very conducive to those fluctuating schedules.
They have the instability in other areas of life, the high availability.
They need to just go to an audition at the drop of a dime.
And so it works.
Sometimes you pick a job because it's highly compatible to how you know you want to live when you're out of the job.
So if you do choose to pursue or just look for other work opportunities, it's not necessary to attach to that process the belief that I have to give up what I love.
You just may have to give up this particular arrangement with what you love, because it's requiring things that compromise the love.
Yeah.
And so you're not throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Right.
And so getting back to jobbing your love here, it has something to do with like hey, she loves the work that she does as an interpreter at a state park.
She's in nature.
She enjoys being in nature.
She enjoys teaching kids.
It sounds like, OK, great. what don't you enjoy about this, right?
There's sort of two columns here.
If you were to put it on a piece of paper, it'd be like, here are all the things I really enjoy.
Here are all the things that I don't enjoy.
And yet I got this piece of paper in my hands, I'm clinging to it, right?
And if you catch yourself clinging, you're clinging to both sides of it.
It's always best to loosen my grip.
I make better decisions from a place of looser grip.
If I'm clinging onto something Or if I completely am throwing something away from me, it's hard to make a decision.
That's an emotional reaction quite often.
There's some sort of fear there.
Get this away from me or I must hold on to this, no matter what.
First step in letting go is simply loosening the grip.
And if you hold this job a little more loosely, what you might realize is like oh yeah, there is a way for me to restructure this.
Now I may be where I am right now and it might be something as simple to get practical for you for a minute.
It might be something as simple as hey, I don't want to work this many hours because I love this job, but working this many hours makes me exhausted.
And so who do you talk to about, look, I add a lot of value here.
I really love the job.
I'm unable to keep doing it the way that I'm doing it right now.
And I recognize there will be some pay reduction implications around that, but it might be worth it to you because right now the cost of getting the money that you're getting is exhaustion.
Is that a cost that you're willing to pay?
For some people, the answer is yes.
I want to hustle and work, work, work and That's fine.
No judgment around that.
But if that's the cost they're willing to pay, I want to be exhausted in order to earn this money right.
Are you willing to give up something so that you can also give up that exhaustion?
That's such a great question.
One last thing I'll add is to explore any possibilities for how you could bend the world more in the direction of you and how you need to live.
I never want to assume, when someone tells me I'm having trouble making time for my friends, that they are going about that in the most optimal way possible.
There may be some shortcomings, some weaknesses, some blind spots, some overlooked possibilities for how you can plan friendship time more effectively.
Same thing with work.
I never want to assume that, just because work is leaving you exhausted, that you are managing your workflow and your work hours according to all the possibilities that you have.
There may be rights you don't know you have.
There may be things you can ask for that you don't know you can ask for.
There may be adjustments you can make.
And so one thing I definitely be interested in sitting down and talking to Bella about is Hey, what are the possibilities here?
What have you tried?
What have you not tried?
Why are we working on the weekends?
What are those weekend hours like?
Is there room to negotiate any of that?
When the friends get together, who's initiating the get togethers?
What are the activities like?
Is there room for you to maybe take more of an initiating role and suggest activities that are easier for you to follow through on?
Whether it's things at your place, on your side of town or at a time that's best for you, given your work schedule.
I like to explore those kinds of possibilities.
So maybe there is a need to get a new job, but maybe there's an opportunity here to upgrade some of the ways we go about getting together with our friends and managing our workflow.
Bell, i'd love to help you out with some of that emotional clutter.
You can download tk's free ebook it's called emotional clutter over at theminimalistscom.
Just head to the resources page there.
We have a bunch of free resources that you can download, including that amazing ebook that he put together is also available as an audio book.
We recorded a conversation around each chapter on that, and also i'd love to give you a clutter counseling session with tk as well, because We spent 20 minutes sorting through this right now, but there's a lot more to sort through, because the fundament of your question is should I quit my job?
And ultimately, the answer is yes.
It doesn't mean the job you leave the job that you're at.
It means reconstituting.
You need to quit the way that is exhausting you right now so you can move forward.
And I think a clutter counseling session with TK will help you out with that.
For anyone else who wants a clutter counseling session head on over to TheMinimalistscom, click Counseling at the top and you can book a session from anywhere in the world.
Before we get back to our callers TK, it's time for the Patreon Community Chats Question of the Week, where we answer with a short, shareable minimal maxim.
You can find this episode's maxims in the show notes at TheMinimalistscom slash podcast and every minimal maxim ever at minimal maximscom.
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If you sign up for our email newsletter at the minimalistscom, we'll never send you spam or junk or ads, but we will start your week off with a dose of simplicity, including a new essay that i write every week that you can get there in the newsletter.
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To simplify still 16 years into minimalism.
Question of the week, TK.
When does the work you love get in the way of the life you love?
So I thought this was apt to pair with Bella's question here because that's what's happening.
Work she loves is also getting in the way.
It's becoming a type of clutter, career clutter for her.
So the work that she loves is getting in the way of the life that she loves.
Before we get to our pithy answers, let's see what some of our listeners had to say.
Darwin said, I believe in work-life integration.
Either your work is part of your life or your life is just part of work.
To answer your question directly.
Work gets in the way when it demands I do something that compromises my boundaries or values.
TK.
What do you recommend to your clients whose work compromises their values?
Think it's a good idea to question your values first before you question the work itself.
Because sometimes I might say I value something, but they're just lip service values.
What do you have to say?
Well, I agree with you there.
And I would say there's a second part to it as well.
There are things we discover about ourselves and our convictions through lived experience.
And so I may begin the journey thinking you know, what I value is having lots of freedom, being able to do things my way.
And then after working a job where I'm given that I may realize actually I value a lot of structure and guidance and mentorship and kind of being told what to do.
And I only value freedom if it takes this particular form, but not like I thought it would be.
Or someone says you know, I really value just you know working a job where I get to work with my hands, but then you're in a factory night shift doing that by yourself and you go, oh.
I realize how much I like being in a social context where I can connect with people.
So if you are in a point, in a position where you feel like hey, my work is compromising my values, I would say this could be an opportunity to take a look at how your work experiences are helping you refine your self-understanding.
Doesn't have to mean at this point that you're a sellout, but I like to think of being a being on the wrong end of this question.
Who am I becoming in the process of continuing down this path?
You have time before you become a sellout.
Sellout is what you become when you look at the truth And you say I don't like the implications of it and I won't adjust accordingly.
I'm just going to pretend like I didn't see what I saw.
But no self condemnation, no self judgment here.
Say this is an opportunity for me to learn about my values.
What are those values?
Are there ways that we can begin representing them, implementing them, embodying them in the workspace, so that we can feel that congruence we desire?
And if not, what are my alternatives?
Are there new roles that I can take in the same space?
Or is there some adjacent role that I can take in a different organization, in a different company?
Even talking to people at work that you can trust, who won't be threatened by this.
That hey, in a positive sense, here are some values I'd really like to bring to the work.
Here's how I want to feel about my work.
Is there anything you can do to help me kind of bridge the gap that's created by that disconnect.
And if you want to get clear on your values, we have a free values worksheet you can download at theminimalistscom.
So take an inventory of your values because quite often it's rather nebulous.
Like I value health and freedom and punctuality.
Whatever you say, I value.
And it's like, okay, what does that mean?
And what's the context of these values?
Are they foundational values for you?
Are they structural values?
Are they surface values?
Or are they imaginary values?
The things that you say you value, but your actions don't really comport with those values.
And that happens quite a bit, where we say we value all of these things, but If you show me your calendar and what you're doing this week, that often shows me what you actually value, at least right now.
It doesn't mean that can't change, but getting clear on your values is really important.
We wrote a whole essay about that as well, called How to Understand Your Values TheMinimalistscom slash V.
You can download that values worksheet and read the essay over there.
NYK says, I think loving what you do for work is a bit of a privilege.
I've heard Scott Galloway say something like if you feel some satisfaction or fulfillment in your work and it allows you to enjoy the life you want to have, then that's a good work-life balance.
TK, how important is fulfillment in the workplace?
Also, why is work the only place we seem to talk about work-life balance but never work love life balance, or health life balance, or hey TK, I'm just really trying to figure out my hobby life balance.
I've never heard anyone say that.
Yeah well, you know, with.
With respect to the fulfillment piece, i think i'm a little old school here, heavily influenced by my father's perspective, which is i don't think the universe owes to any of us a job that makes us feel good all the time, or or a way of providing for ourselves, paying our bills, providing for our families, that makes us feel like this is the one thing that i was born to do and, for most of human history, You were able to make your way through the world by doing something that was the best combination of the skill you possessed, the skill you could learn, the experiences that you had, the opportunities that were before you and the people that you were around.
And not everybody could be a professional baseball player, a professional podcaster, or a comedian.
And it can be easy to look down on our lives when we make our living doing something that is unsexy.
But I think what's more important than how much a job fulfills me is how healthy and how whole am I as an individual and how spiritually grounded am I, and how good am I at establishing rituals and routines and practices that nurture my sense of self and help me to become a good human being, so that I'm bringing the life to whatever it is I do?
I do think it's possible to live a healthy whole, deeply fulfilling life and Having a job that when people say do you love it.
You say, it's a job.
I show up, I type in the data, I move the boxes around, I answer the people's questions, I fill out the reports.
No, doing my job doesn't make me feel the same way I feel when I listen to great music or play a game of chess.
Hey, I'm grateful to have something that puts bread on the table.
And I look to my family, my hobbies and other things to be the primary source of my joy.
I think that's an okay way to live that has worked for most people in history.
And there's something good about reclaiming at least some of that in our lifetime, where we have so many privileges and possibilities.
Another moment from Anthony DeMello.
He said, before enlightenment, I was depressed.
After enlightenment, I was still depressed, but I didn't identify with it.
Oh, that's it.
And what you're talking about here.
Yes, you may not be able to be the famous stand-up comedian or the baseball player or the famous actor necessarily, right?
But most of those people who do those jobs are also depressed and upset and not fulfilled.
So it is possible to get the dream job that is supposed to fulfill you.
And it also doesn't fulfill you.
It's because we identify with like, this is the thing.
This is going to complete me.
I'm going to be able to say I am an actor or I am an author.
And that will Complete me.
And it's like well, for a moment it'll make you feel good, but we're confusing excitement with joy.
Yeah, that's right.
And you know, it's interesting too because, even though we know technically these are not absolutes, speaking and thinking of these things in a way makes it feel like it.
So for instance, as a kid, my parents sent me to school.
I never wanted to go.
I never had a morning.
Where I woke up and it was like, apart from a day of like, there's a field trip where I'm like yay, I want to go to school.
Like mom and dad always had to push me in spite of myself to go.
And at just about every second that I was there, you give me the option.
You want to go home?
I'm saying yes to that option.
And yet, when I think back to those years, a lot of boring moments, but a lot of bonds were formed with other people.
A lot of really good friendships, a lot of funny moments, but Funny moments from me sitting in chemistry class and the teacher saying something and we all reacting to it.
In a way, I would have never chosen to be in that moment.
I would have taken the out at any moment, but I have a lot of powerful, lovely memories and moments from school.
And so, even when you're not where you want to be or doing what you want to do, that's very different from feeling the joy and being happy because we know this to be true from the reverse.
Talk to everyone who gets to play baseball for their job.
Talk to everyone who gets to be an actor for their job and they will be able to tell you, without any difficulty, moments of being at work or dealing with the ramifications of their work, where they're very exhausted, very tired, very annoyed, very unhappy.
We just don't listen to them because we say, you got a million dollars.
So I refuse to feel sorry for you.
You should never complain.
But when we do that, we don't get to learn the lesson in that that's valuable for us.
Yeah, I find for me that I can't believe I get to do this is a thing that I often will say.
And we're doing a live event or we're doing a podcast like, yes, I can't believe I get to do this.
But in a way, it's what you're saying there is like you're choosing to do this.
It's not that you have to do it and maybe you don't want to do it, but there is the choice there.
And right now you're determining whether This is the best choice.
But I want to get back to the work life balance thing.
Oh, yeah.
Because we do talk about work life balance a lot, but we don't talk about hobby life balance or health life balance or love life balance.
I do think we think about those things, but not in the same framework.
Why do you think that is?
Well, we kind of we tend, I think. to bake those concepts into our understanding of life.
I mean, what is it to have a life?
People you love, good, healthy relationships.
What is it to have a life?
To have energy, to have some freedom, to have some joy, to have good, rich experiences.
If you were to ask someone, what does it mean to have a life?
These are the types of things that we describe.
These are the things that we treat money as a means to help us arrive at.
But when it comes to our work, we sort of experience that as oh, that's the thing, unless I'm born into a really wealthy family, that I have to do.
I don't get to have a choice about that.
I get some agency over who my friends are, over what movies I watch, over how I dress.
But When it comes to the work, I got to do something.
And so our relationship to work starts with that.
And we're kind of told that from day one, like one day, you're going to have to get out of here and provide for yourself.
And so work is something that I have to do.
And so I negotiate with my job.
All right, I'm going to give you as little energy and time as I can.
And you give me as much money as you can so I can use this money on the stuff that really matters.
And so we need a work-life balance because I need to make sure, work, you stay in your place.
You don't get in the way of what I need you for.
And that sounds draining.
And so in a way, like these other things feel life-affirming.
The love-life balance, you hear that sounds positive, right?
Yeah.
And of course, the hobby is like, oh, yeah, that's just work by a different name.
It's unpaid work, right?
Unpaid work that I enjoy.
We call it a hobby, right?
And you have to be careful turning your hobbies, jobbing your love, right?
Turning your hobbies into something that you are paid for because that can also kill it in a way.
So being careful around that.
The same is true with health.
We think of health as that is the thing that gives us life.
A healthy man wants 10,000 things.
A sick man wants but one, according to Confucius, right?
And if you are sick you don't care about all of the shiny objects and the fancy cars and the big house and the right furniture.
And does this handbag look good with this outfit?
I just want my health back.
But with work, it feels like, oh, that's the other thing.
We use that word.
And I get this.
For the longest time.
I did an experiment for a whole year where I stopped using the word work after I left the corporate world.
And so I, instead of saying I work out, I'd say I'm going to go to the gym, or instead of, I got to get some work done.
It's like I'm going to respond to some emails.
Right.
Because I also had this negative connotation with work.
I no longer I broke myself the habit.
To me, my work is really fulfilling, even though I don't always want to do it.
There are times where I would rather do something else.
But that's true with love, with hobbies, with health.
Yeah, I would rather eat the ice cream sandwich, but I'll go ahead and have the smoothie across the street because that is the healthier option.
I would prefer one thing, but this other thing is better for me, all things considered.
And so I'm willing to say, yeah, yeah, the work is part of it.
I like what NYK said here is it's work-life integration.
It's all integrated ultimately, because if not, it's like the show Severance.
Have you heard of Severance?
No, no.
It's a Apple TV show.
There are two seasons of it.
It's truly great.
But the premise, which you learn in the first episode, is a lot of people dislike their work.
In fact, what's the old tagline is?
There's more to life than work, right?
You've heard that.
There's more to life than work.
The tagline of the show was there's more to work than life, which is like oh, that's almost like demonic or dystopian.
Like, what do you mean there's more to work than life?
Well, the premise of the show is you go into this office building and you have a severed self.
They do this procedure in your brain so that when you show up there you don't remember any of your work life.
And you go to your cubicle and you fill out your spreadsheets and your forms for eight hours a day.
And so there are literally two different selves now.
There's the work version of TK and he doesn't remember anything that happens outside, in the outside world.
And then there's outside TK, and the fact they're called innies and outies.
Your outie, this show is like right up your alley too.
That's funny, yeah.
And your outie goes in, and as soon as they step in the elevator they don't remember any of the mundane, boring drudgery that happens at work.
And people voluntarily sign up for this because-
They recognize for them that work gets them paid.
But I don't want I don't want to have to experience it.
It removes the experiencing self for eight hours a day.
The problem with that is your any is now just a perpetual wage slave.
They don't sleep.
They don't because all they remember is being there in their cubicle, essentially.
And I think that's the the the genesis of work life balance.
We get to a point where it's like, yeah, yeah.
The drudgery.
I don't associate it with anything meaningful or fulfilling, and it's just pure drudgery.
It's Sisyphus.
It's pushing the rock up the hill in perpetuity.
And I think that's why it doesn't feel fulfilling.
But you highlighted something really important.
You can find something fulfilling because it's not all pushing the rock up the hill.
In what ways are you adding value?
Even if you're working, like I did, in a cell phone store right back in the day, or managing a bunch of cell phone stores, Can I find joy in what I'm doing here?
And the answer is unequivocally yes, unless I'm doing something immoral for the job.
But then that's an easy answer.
I'm going to remove myself from this if I can.
Yeah, you know I want to.
When thinking about this topic work-life balance I think there's a more fundamental balance between two seemingly opposing truths, but we need to hold both of them in order to be healthy and have a good relationship to work and life itself.
The first truth is you are responsible for the world.
The second truth is you are not responsible for the world.
In very different senses, we have to hold both of them.
In one sense, we have to look at the world as a place where we have some agency, maybe not as much as others, maybe not as much as we like.
But we have the power to create changes.
We have the power to initiate ripple effects, to do something, however small, that can produce changes that are deeply meaningful.
And at the same time, you are not responsible for the world.
The world was here before you were born.
It's going to be here after you're gone.
And there are many things that function independently of you.
And that actually place constraints on you in ways that you can't control.
You can't blame yourself for some of that stuff.
So you spoke of health earlier.
And if we were to ask a question like, well, why are people not healthy?
Well, some of it has to do with discipline.
Some of it has to do with prioritizing things that you can and should change.
But you know what?
I've lived in neighborhoods where when I go outside in walking distance I've got two dialysis centers.
I've got a Popeye's and a 7-Eleven. a gas station, I can walk to all of these things.
I can get some fast food, some fried chicken.
But if I want some fresh fruit, I want some groceries, I've got to get in that car or on a bus and I've got to drive for at least about 20 minutes.
Go to a different neighborhood.
And I have to have some money as well, And so telling me to spend the five dollars on the organic strawberries that require me to get in the car and drive to a different neighborhood, versus spending maybe a dollar ninety nine on those fries at Popeye's.
I know which choice is easier to make, or to go get some packaged donuts or something from the gas station or soda.
I know what choice is easier to make.
And, by the way, that easier choice is also the more delicious, like the gustatory pleasure in that moment.
It feels to your lizard brain like it is the right choice in that moment because it tastes better.
That's right.
And a lot of people walk around feeling like, losers.
I don't really want what I say I want.
I'm getting it wrong.
I'm failing at life.
I look at this creative person and this rich person and this healthy person and everybody's doing it so right.
And we don't appreciate the degree to which so many things are stacked against us.
And I say that not to promote a kind of fatalism like hey, you have all the excuses, just sit on the couch and complain about it.
But I say that because you can't be sufficiently motivated and develop a sense of agency unless you can focus it and have radical acceptance for the fact that these are things you can't directly control and that's not your fault.
Your struggle is real and understandable.
Right, right.
And so it gets back to controlling what you can control, but also recognizing that I can't control everything.
I'm going to drive myself crazy trying to do so as well.
Let's do one more from Angela.
Angela said, when I leave work for the day, that is where my work stays.
I do not want I don't want it in my life space.
I no longer, this is like a severance again, right?
Yeah, for sure.
I no longer bring work home with me.
I am learning to leave it at the door.
I do not have my work email on my phone.
It's my personal phone for a reason.
I am more present that way when I am at home.
TK, do you have any recommendations for people who are unlike Angela, who maybe aren't able to draw this indelible line between their work life and personal life?
And, let's face it, there are some jobs where, if the building's on fire or someone doesn't show up for their shift, you will get the call and you need to have that phone on.
So accept the kind of position that you have and what that demands of you.
But even within that context, look for ways that you might be giving silent permission for people to ignore your boundaries.
One example of this is my wife saw that an email came in.
And it was at like 8 p.m.
And because it was on her mind, she was like, I should just do it.
And that's totally understandable, right?
Because you don't want to have to think about that and carry the weight of that email to bed.
And you certainly don't want to wake up in the morning and forget.
But as she got ready to do it, I was like, please don't do it.
Please don't send that email.
Because the boundary that you have right now is you don't respond to emails after business hours.
This person is sending you this email because there is no closing sign for email.
This is the convenient time for them to send you the email.
I don't care if they send you this email at 1 a.m.
It's okay for them to do it because that's when they can.
Now it's no longer on their mind.
But if you reply to them now, you've just set a standard.
All you need to do is one time.
And that is you are capable of responding to emails at this time.
So the next time someone needs you and it's urgent and they email you and you don't respond at 8 pm, that can now be incriminating.
And the more you do this, the more you're going to feel the need to do it.
It was hard for her, but she was like, yeah.
You're right.
I'm not going to reply to it.
I'll wait till the morning.
And you know, sometimes you can just type out your email and you can set it up so that it'll automatically send out at 905.
But little things like that sometimes in the name of just being nice, just getting it out of the way so I don't have to think about it, we send soft, silent signals to other people that say my boundaries are negotiable.
Man, I wish I would have known you in 2003 when I got that first BlackBerry.
Yeah.
Because I thought I was so, everyone like reinforced it too.
Wow, you always are so fast to respond.
It doesn't matter if it's 10 o'clock at night, I still get a response from you.
And I'm like yes, I'm the type of person that well, I'm able to respond.
Because what does that mean?
I'm responsible, able to respond.
I thought I'm a responsible person if I'm always on, always responding.
And so the very first thing, when I would wake up in the morning, I'd reach for that Blackberry, which also was my alarm.
And I would pull, I haven't even gotten out of bed yet.
And I'm going through the emails on my Blackberry.
And the last thing before I go to bed, my head's on the pillow and I'm checking and responding to emails at night.
It's like, I don't know, like a doctor on call, right?
But I wasn't saving anyone.
I couldn't even save myself at that point.
Yeah.
So, TK, where were you to come save me?
All right.
How about you, listeners?
When does the work you love get in the way of the life you love?
Let us know your thoughts in the Patreon community chat.
OK, give me something pithy, TK.
When does the work you love get in the way of the life you love?
Work becomes a thief when it steals more than it supplies. or when it extracts more than it gives.
Think about being an employee.
A good employee is someone who at first is a cost to the company, because the cost is making an initial investment in bringing you onto the team and they've got to pay you.
But the reason they're willing to absorb that cost is because they believe you're going to create more value for them than what they are paying you in the form of your salary or your wage.
In a similar way, we have to look at our work as employees of us.
They are an expense.
They cost time, energy, and attention.
And sometimes we do have to compromise our rest.
We do have to compromise our freedom.
And life isn't always peace and comfort.
That's okay.
But is this work giving me more in return in terms of contributing to my meaning, my fulfillment and my optionality in life than what it's taking from me?
If the answer to that is yes, then I have a healthy life-work balance.
If the answer to that is no, then I need to figure out how can I negotiate.
I like to think about this in terms of physical clutter for a moment, just as a metaphor.
So my pithy answer is the right object in the wrong place becomes clutter.
I really get a lot of value from my shower and from my refrigerator.
But if I put my refrigerator in the shower, I've rendered both of them useless.
Now, how does that apply to work?
Well, yeah, same thing.
If I'm bringing work home and I'm still on the pillow at 1030 at night responding to emails, it's like wait a minute.
This is now like putting my refrigerator in my bed with me.
The bed is getting in the way of the work.
The work is getting in the way.
And it's like, oh, you have intermingled it.
It's clutter because anything that gets in the way is clutter.
So clutter is often contextual here, right?
Career clutter might mean that I'm putting work in the wrong places in my own life.
That's almost the end of page one.
We still have an entire switchboard of callers to talk to.
But first real quick, for right here, right now, here are two things that are going on in the life of the minimalist TK.
We are excited to announce that our 2026 three day minimalist retreat, which is called Simple Haven, is coming back.
Ojai, California, May 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, limited to 30 people only.
And so that is a Saturday, Sunday, and a Monday.
We spend two days at the Ojai Art Center.
And it's me and you and Ryan Nicodemus will be there.
Savvy D. We'll try to get Professor Sean up there as well.
And we're going to spend just a couple of days with you at the Ohio Art Center.
Outside, under the oak trees, palm trees, beautiful Ohio, California.
And we're going to work on letting go together.
And then the next day, you'll have a chance to explore Ojai during the day.
And we have a screening for the 10th anniversary of Minimalism, our first Netflix documentary.
And so we're going to screen that in Ojai as well, at the Ojai Playhouse, which is like my favorite theater.
David, the guy who owns it, I love him.
He has this beautiful story.
He sold a company to Live Nation.
And he's like, I want to do something for the Ojai community.
I've got this extra money.
So he spent all his money building out this beautiful, 110-year-old playhouse.
It's theater.
It's a one-screen theater.
The best sound system, the chairs, it just feels right.
You go to the old ticket stand behind, you buy your tickets.
He just does such a great job curating things.
He plays old films all the time, David Lynch films and It's a beautiful place.
What a great place to do the 10th anniversary screening.
So if you can't come to Ojai for the Simple Haven Retreat, you just want to come to one event, we'll have tickets available for that screening as well for the public.
It's going to be relatively limited.
But for Simple Haven, it's three days, May 2nd, 3rd, and 4th there in Ojai, California.
TK, what are some of your favorite memories or moments from last year's Simple Haven?
So I remember that you, Ryan and myself, we gave this presentation together, but then we did I don't know, we'll call them breakout sessions, where Ryan was in one space, you were in another space and I was in a different one.
And we divided everyone into three groups, and the groups were rotated around.
So I could never see what Ryan was doing.
You couldn't see what I was doing, and vice versa.
Right.
I could experience the energy of how people coming from your session coming into my session, how that was affecting them.
And having that time to interact with them, about what you did with them, but then bringing them into my space to do something different.
And it was an interesting way to collaborate that I thought was very fascinating.
And I think a lot of people found joy in it.
Because, of course, when we're in that space, we're going to be doing a lot of things together.
But but having that way of doing things together, that was separate.
It just brought together some cool elements.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We were able to play around with different types of letting go.
And I have a couple great memories.
One is Gina, who shaved her head at the end of it.
No one told her to shave her head, by the way.
But there was this moment where she was.
We had everyone write down three things they want to let go of this weekend.
And one had something to do with like her identity and there was some career thing.
And the third thing was my hair.
And I was like, tell me about that.
What do you mean?
And part of that had to do with it wasn't really letting go of her hair.
There was some identity.
She was struggling and she wanted a bit of a reset.
And this was the opportunity for her.
And so I thought we'd get an email from her a couple of months later.
Like I trimmed my hair and it's shorter now.
But at the end of it, she's like, does anyone have any clippers?
Savvy D is like, I've got some in my car because he has a bald head.
And she's like, I'd like to shave my hair right here.
And so it was remarkable.
I think there's some photos up on our Instagram.
If you can put that in the show notes, Savvy D, there's a link to that.
It was just this experience where I was like.
Wow.
And everyone was so supportive and friendly.
And obviously, I would never tell anyone to shave their head at one of our retreats.
That'd be the last thing you tell someone.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, look at my hair.
I'm never shaving mine.
You wanted to pay her to not shave her head.
And then I also have this great memory of Shine.
Remember the peace sticks?
That's right.
He's going to come back this year.
And so it's this physical letting go.
And it is such a beautiful experience and experiment that we will do together.
Me, Nicodemus, TK, and 30 of you, Simple Haven over at TheMinimalists.com.
Click on events at the top and grab your tickets while they are still available.
Also, TK, you just had an intense but thoughtful interview. debate about morality with Destiny.
Destiny's been on our show before.
He's a YouTuber, political commentator who advocates for different liberal ideas.
And you and he have different opinions about morality.
And I really enjoyed it.
I helped moderate it, but I mostly stayed out of the way.
We're going to put that up on our Patreon.
By the time this episode comes out, you'll be able to listen to it on our Patreon as well.
No matter which level of support you have, we'll send that over to you.
You can watch that debate.
Was there a standout moment from you during your conversation with Destiny?
There was a moment where Destiny smiles and says, I'm going to change my position.
And, and then a related moment where you said something about, do you believe moral values exist?
And he responded something like well, we're going to have to define what we mean by value and existence.
And it clearly wasn't evasive because he went to, went on to define what he meant by these things.
Or you asked him about suffering.
He says, well, I need to define what I mean by suffering here, right?
And just that level of sensitivity to the ideas, recognizing the importance of context and clarity and also having a good anticipation of the wide range of thought out there and how different people will hear these words differently, misunderstand them differently, react to them differently.
And he seemed like he had a good time the whole time.
And I had a good time.
And whenever you find someone that you can disagree with, especially in public, when you know people are going to take sides and say all sorts of things about you.
We were able to be there and have fun in a way where it's like man.
I wish we could do this for even longer.
No name calling.
It felt like at no point was there any sense of anybody having anything to lose, but there's just an interest in understanding things and going deeper.
That's what I love about it.
And I just love my conversations with him.
And like I've said to him before, we don't even need to have the camera on.
Happy to do another one with the camera on, but we don't need to have the camera on.
I just enjoy the conversation.
Yeah.
I learned quite a few new things about you and I think our audience will as well.
So you can check that out on our Patreon page, patreon.com slash The Minimalist.
Much more coming up, TK.
But first, here is a minimalist tip from one of our listeners.
Hi, fellow minimalists.
This is Federica calling from Germany.
I would like to share some insights for Austin, who was calling in on episode 515, asking for ergonomic tips for his home office space.
I might have some insights as my job involves the ergonomic design of computer workstations.
But first of all, I would like to agree with everything that has already been said by Josh regarding compensatory movements and regular changes of position.
This is definitely essential for people who are sitting a lot.
In general, I would suggest not to work directly on your laptop, at least not for long periods of time.
It's better to connect an external monitor, keyboard and mouse to ensure a better ergonomic posture.
I have some tips regarding that, but I'm afraid this might get a little technical, but here we go.
So the angle between upper and lower arm, your upper and lower leg and the hip should at least be 90 degrees.
Can achieve this by adjusting the height of your chair and your table.
Also, your wrists should be as straight as possible while typing, so I would suggest to fold the keyboard feet.
And last but not least, adjust the height and tilt of the monitor so that your head and gaze are slightly tilted downward, just like you were reading a book.
This relieves strain on the neck and also reduces dryness of the eyes.
And then I have two specific tips for Austin.
You were talking about a window right behind the monitor, and this might lead to direct glare.
So the brightness difference between monitor and window might be too high.
I would suggest to position your desk sideways to the window.
And you were also talking about pain in your fingers.
So if you haven't tried it yet, you could try a vertical ergonomic mouse so that your hand is in handshake position.
This puts less pressure on the fingers.
I hope that helps.
And many thanks to the minimalists for doing what you do.
Much love.
Much love, Iko.
Thank you for that helpful and practical comment.
Yeah, I think the biggest takeaway that I have for all of this is I think the ergonomics are important, but also like, As Alexander said, that the or Aaron Alexander said on our show.
He said that the best position is your next position, because it's all about movement and we don't want to be stuck somewhere for eight hours a day.
For one day, that's fine.
But day after day after day, the repetition there it rewires our body, our nervous systems, our musculature in weird ways, especially like it's difficult for your average person in the West to even do a single deep squat and stay in it for a couple of minutes.
It's difficult because.
Well, it's a human movement.
We all could do it at some point, but then we trained ourselves out of it through all of the sitting that we're doing.
And so what she's talking about here is sort of undoing some of the harm that we've done to ourselves with our work life, so to speak.
For anyone else has a listener tip or insight about this episode or any other episode.
We'd love to hear from you.
Send a voice memo to podcast at theminimalists.com so we can feature your voice on the show.
Up next, page two and page three.
But first, let's take a quick pandiculation break.
We'll be right back.
All right.
Wow.
That was an amazing episode, TK.
What you just heard was the first 35% of 527.
We'll see you on Patreon for the full two hour actually it's about two and a half hours, I think maximal edition, which includes answers to a bunch more questions.
We answered questions like...
How can I let go of anxiety driven discipline and constant shoulds to make space for flow and peace without abandoning what truly matters to me?
Also, a woman called in said after a sudden layoff shock.
I feel like I lost my identity.
I have a lot of identity clutter and emotional clutter behind that as well.
How do I move forward with confidence while still under pressure to find a new job pretty quickly?
Also, how does minimalism relate to stoicism?
And does practicing one naturally mean practicing the other?
Plus a million more questions and simple living segments over on the Minimalist Private Podcast on Patreon.
The link is is in the description.
When you subscribe, you can listen to our private episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite podcast app.
Plus, you'll gain access to all of our podcast archives all the way back to the very first episode.
And that is our minimal episode for today.
On behalf of Ryan Nicodemus, TK Coleman, Audio Bin, Spire Jeff and Dave, Tom Katt, Professor Sean, Savvy D, and the rest of our team, I'm Joshua Fields-Milburn.
If you leave here with just one message...
Let it be this.
Love people and use things.
Because the opposite never works.
Thanks for listening, y'all.
We'll see you next time.
Peace.
Every little thing.
You think that you need Every little thing.
You think that you need Every little thing that's just feeding your greed.
Oh, I bet that you'd be fine without it.
