Evertett bogue the art of being minimalist

THE ART OF BEING MINIMALIST HOW TO STOP CONSUMING AND START LIVING BY EVERETT BOGUE The Art of Being Minimalist: How to Stop Consuming and Start Living | www.farbeyondthestars.com | Page INTRODUCTION Imagine a world where your life isn’t dominated by the things you carry The freedom that comes from a closet that contains a handful of stylish clothes One nice pair of shoes You have the freedom of an uncluttered schedule So you can pursue your dreams Imagine if you could work from anywhere, and move whenever you pleased Imagine if you didn’t have to housework every single weekend You would never forget where your glasses are, because you know where everything is instictively This world exists, you just have to go find it I firmly believe that being minimalist is the answer to many of your questions I know this because it is the life I live every day This e-book is my minimalist story I hope that it helps you find the answers The Art of Being Minimalist: How to Stop Consuming and Start Living | www.farbeyondthestars.com | Page HOW THIS ALL STARTED In July 2009, I quit my job and moved across the country to Portland I had everything I owned on my back and $3000 in my bank account I had no plan, no job lined up It was the middle of the Great Recession Everyone told me that I shouldn’t it, that it’d be impossible I’d fail and end up bankrupt, hanging out under the Interstate with Portland’s large, hippy homeless community But I didn’t fail, I thrived This is the story of my minimalist success It wasn’t easy, but it was possible Since then, I’ve found that I can live wherever I want I’ve been to Seattle, Chicago, and back to Brooklyn I’m planning to head out to Berkeley in May This e-book is about how I live this life The secret is that being minimalist opens a lot of doors automatically You just have to free up the mind-space from sorting your stamp collection and hauling around the boxes full of books you’ve already read When you do, you start to realize that every person on this planet can be much freer than they are, they just have to let themselves take the journey There were only three primary choices I made to leave my job 1, I had to have less than 100 things 2, I had to give up consumerism and cook all of my own food 3, I had to learn to work on the Internet The first two are covered comprehensively in this e-book The 3rd is another story completely, and perhaps my next e-book will be on the topic This e-book is a chronicle of my minimalist philosophy for success Within, I go over in great detail my minimalist philosophy towards life I hope you’ll give it a read The Art of Being Minimalist: How to Stop Consuming and Start Living | www.farbeyondthestars.com | Page Everett Bogue is the blogger behind Far Beyond The Stars, where he writes about being minimalist and living a creative life He was the photo editor of New York Magazine’s blogs from 20062009 He has lived in Brooklyn, NY; Portland, OR, and Chicago, IL over the last four months He’s he’s holed up for the winter in Brooklyn with his cute girlfriend and her special cat, Lola He’ll be in SF Bay in May He has less than 75 things ABOUT THE AUTHOR EVERETT BOGUE The Art of Being Minimalist: How to Stop Consuming and Start Living | www.farbeyondthestars.com | Page WHY BECOME A MINIMALIST? There are many reasons, and not everyone follows the same path or ends up with the same outcome If you’re reading this, there’s probably a good chance you’ve answered some of these questions for yourself already Here are a few reasons that you might decide to become a minimalist • You’re unhappy with your job • You want to travel • You’re stressed and can’t find time • You want to follow your passion • You’ve bought everything you ever needed, but you’re still not happy There are of course more reasons, these are just some of the most common ones I became a minimalist for a combination of these reasons Being minimalist helped me leave my unsatisfying job It helped me move across the country with very little money It helped me lose 20 pounds I’m calmer now, and more in control of my destiny The Art of Being Minimalist: How to Stop Consuming and Start Living | www.farbeyondthestars.com | Page Being minimalist is having the flexibility to what you want, when you wish to it Think about it If you wanted to, could you these things: • Could you fly to Peru next Friday? • Could you start your own company? • Could you relocate to Vancouver next week? • Could you cope if you lost your job? WHAT IS YOUR MINIMALIST DESTINATION? There are people who are free to these things When these people want to make change, they You can be one of them by becoming minimalist I don’t believe you should just be minimalist for the sake of being minimalist The philosophy has to have another reason, and it’s important to write that down Think of something impossible, an objective that you’ve always wanted to achieve, but that everyone told you was impractical Make that your goal for next year Write that goal down When I quit my job and flew to Portland, OR, it was easy because I could carry all of my stuff I lived a sustainable life, so surviving on $3,000 for three months wasn’t difficult Many people are trapped in their own lives by their stuff But the reality is, we don’t need most of it anymore Despite what they might tell you on television news, we live in an age of abundance You can have everything you ever wanted, it’s down at the corner store It’s important to recognize that you can have everything that you want, but if you limit yourself to the essentials you will open a world of possibilities for yourself You can live anywhere, you can work anywhere It doesn’t matter who you are, the possibilities are open if you get rid of the physical, mental, and emotional stuff You can be free You can the impossible The Art of Being Minimalist: How to Stop Consuming and Start Living | www.farbeyondthestars.com | Page BEING MINIMALIST IS ABOUT There are a number of reasons that being minimalist is an advantageous lifestyle to adopt and we’ll go over many of those in the coming pages For the moment I’d like to explain the three pillars of being minimalist These are the three primary reasons that I adopted a minimalist lifestyle They all have far reaching implications in your life, as well as to the planet itself Sustainability Balance We all know the world is dying, Al Gore made that clear enough We all hope for a legislative change from our governments to cap carbon emissions, but it’s just not coming If we don’t something, our children will inherit a dangerous world without ice caps Many people are frantically running around the streets of America trying to get things done These people are Tweeting and phoning, they’re stressed out and consuming They’re fat and they’re sad, and they don’t know what the problem is I’m not sure what the world will look like in 50 to 100 years, but I know it’s not going to look like the one we have now It’s going to be much warmer and it will be much harder to grow food or go to the beach Balance is an element that we’ve lost in the modern age I believe one of the primary keys to a happy human being is living a balanced lifestyle This is a lifestyle without sacrifices, without compromises It’s a life where you aren’t forced, obligated, or otherwise enticed to work 70 hours a week We can sit back on our couches and nothing or we can choose to adopt a lifestyle which is sustainable Being minimalist is one way you can it I’m not claiming it’s the only way, and I know this lifestyle isn’t for everyone, but by adopting it, you will fundamentally change the impact you have on this earth Being minimalist is a way to achieve balance in your life By limiting yourself in life to what is absolutely essential to your existence, you’ll have more time for yourself You’ll have more time to exercise and cook beautiful dinners again You’ll be able to focus on career goals that matter and not simply banging out the next widget The Art of Being Minimalist: How to Stop Consuming and Start Living | www.farbeyondthestars.com | Page Freedom Many people in this world are being told to sit down, shut up, and pay their mortgages This is no way to live What happened to freedom for all? You might be asking this question Well, the answer is simple You’ve been convinced you need all of these things in your life, but you don’t It’s a big conspiracy to keep the factories churning That flat screen TV you bought? There’s a 3D version coming out that’s better You have a choice, you can rush out and buy a 3D flat screen, or you can opt out Destroy your television, have more time Maybe you don’t buy flat screen TVs, I know I don’t Transpose this theory to any consumption that you regularly I almost guarantee that you’re spending outrageous amounts of money on something in your life that you don’t need I used to spend tons of money on two things, alcohol and clothes I was a New Yorker, I had to act the part I’d go out to bars and the sweet talk with B-list celebrity journalists and friends who were trying to get laid At times in my life I would spend three or four nights a week out on the town, racking up $80 bar bills Finally, I said enough I want freedom Maybe you do, too? So stop spending Take a serious look at your finances and see what you can cut Start setting goals The best way to stop spending is to realize that you want to something with your life I wanted to work for myself and live anywhere I wanted So I set goals I would stop spending, and start thinking about my plans And then I jumped I just quit one day, with $3000 in the bank I said enough with this system, I want out I want to live a free life and I want to work for myself And you know what, it wasn’t that hard I flew halfway across the country, embraced being minimalist fully, and started living Being minimalist is about the decision to stop spending and start living a free life Will you join me? The Art of Being Minimalist: How to Stop Consuming and Start Living | www.farbeyondthestars.com | Page WHY YOU SHOULD READ In my first couple of weeks in Portland, I did a lot of reading I didn’t have much of a schedule, so I felt the best use of my brain was to read as many books as possible One of the books I read during this time was Leo Babauta’s A Simple Guide to A Minimalist Life A SIMPLE GUIDE TO A MINIMALIST LIFE While this e-book owes a great debt to Leo’s many years of minimalist practice, I hope these two books can complement each other Leo’s book is simply brilliant In it he lays down the terms of becoming a minimalist in his signature, uncomplicated prose He covers the fundamentals of living without tons of crap in your life in a very basic way Because of this reason, I chose to leave out many of the more basic decisions that you need to have more freedom in your life If you haven’t read Leo’s book yet, and are very new to the idea of being minimalist, I hope that you’ll choose to read it now A Simple Guide to a Minimalist Life is the fundamental text regarding minimalist philosophy It’s only $9.95 and 50% of that goes to support my own writing Thank you CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION The Art of Being Minimalist: How to Stop Consuming and Start Living | www.farbeyondthestars.com | Page HOW I MADE THE DECISION TO LIBERATE MYSELF I’ve always had very few possessions, but being a minimalist isn’t just about what you carry with you It’s your entire engagement with the world I spent the last three years in New York living with very few possessions, but I admittedly did spend a lot of money New York is like that, it sucks you in and spits you out without your wallet by with little, and I started to realize that I didn’t need to be making as much money (and spending as much money) as I was in New York I hope by writing this I can help a few more people achieve this state of being There’s a moment when everything changes, when you can’t turn back Minimalism is like the secret room that no one wants you to know about, and how peaceful it is We’re all bombarded by advertising every day, claiming that we need one more thing, that we’ll be happier if we just buy more It’s not hard to understand how we’re conditioned to want to spend, but it’s hard reversing the work of (rough estimation) hundreds of billions of dollars of corporate spending to make us want just one more thing I think there was a tipping point, when I figured out just how rewarding this life would be Living day to day, place to place, consuming the minimum, existing a little bit on the fringes I enjoy watching the busy people running around, frantically trying to support their overextended lifestyles, smiling, and then going back home and writing a little Trying to help spread a little more knowledge about where I’ve been, where you can go I think the moment when I couldn’t go back came when I started meeting people who were living this way, at the minimum, traveling here and there, making their living doing new and exciting things I saw how they could get I gradually began to stop consuming and started living The rewards are infinite though Freedom can’t be bought, it can only be found It’s sitting right here, you’ve just got to slowly work your way backwards from the grand buildup of possessions and spending and join us on the minimalist path The Art of Being Minimalist: How to Stop Consuming and Start Living | www.farbeyondthestars.com | Page 10 16 Simple Ways to Clear Your Mind Mind clutter is one of the biggest obstacles that I encounter daily on the path to my goals I imagine you know what I’m talking about, the constant chatterbox that is our human brain Brains are useful things, they help you a lot of incredibly cool stuff But sometimes they just won’t shut up There’s a lot going on most of the time, so who can really blame our minds for wanting to over-analyze everything? Except a lot of brain-clutter can be a problem when you’re trying to accomplish anything A cluttered mind can keep you from achieving your potential in most situations diately turn off whatever I’m doing and begin one of these activities below Sometimes I will dedicate an entire day to clearing my mind I will mark a day off my calendar and simply spend it meditating and rejuvenating my mind I’ve done this many times, and it can increase my mind’s effectiveness two-fold when I return to normal activities A mind is most effective at zero Sometimes brains get stuck on problems They get into a pattern where they’re constantly trying to imagine what’s going to happen to you next, or worse, they second guess all of your actions A healthy mind will help you accomplish goals when you need it to, an unhealthy mind will sabotage you before you even start working In my opinion, excessive thinking is just as problematic as having an excessive amount of things This is one of the many reasons why I find it important to employ a number of decluttering activities with my mind I try to engage in at least one of these activities a day If my mind clutter is too much at any one moment, I will acknowledge that my mind is overwhelmed When this happens, I imme- The purpose of all of these exercises is to reset your mind to zero This is a place where there is no conversation Part of the mind reset process is first acknowledging that you don’t need the thoughts floating around your head For some people, the constant background noise in their mind is comforting, but none of these exercises will help you if you enjoy the company of a mind that won’t shut up The best way to approach getting over the problem of being comforted by a chattering mind is to recognize that there is a huge difference between a conversation with yourself in your brain and actual thinking The Art of Being Minimalist: How to Stop Consuming and Start Living | www.farbeyondthestars.com | Page 56 I’ve read a number of books on Buddhist and Yogic philosophy that teach of abolishing the inner conversation with yourself I believe these authors have it right, the mind must be quiet for actions to come to their full potential The preconception that you can think through any activity before you it is false While there are important elements of planning, we waste untold hours secondguessing ourselves with our own minds Sit in silence Place a pillow on the ground somewhere in a private place, turn off the lights, and just sit for 15 minutes Listen to the chatter in your mind, but don’t try to interact with it Just observe your thought patterns, eventually they will begin to subside Try sitting for a longer time when you can Take a walk By training the mind to rest at zero, you will become a far more effective person A person who deals with obstacles as they happen with a mind that is sharp and effective 16 simple ways to clear your mind Meditation while walking is one of the best ways to calm a mind There’s something about the repetition of moving one foot in front of the next that is so relaxing Go for a 30-minute walk with no destination You will return with a calmed mind Write it down Take your thought processes out of your pre-frontal cortex and onto the page Open a notebook, take a pen, and begin engaging in writing flow until you find that the waves of thought have subsided Laugh it off Sometimes life is just silly, so have a sense of humor and embrace the insanity Laugh at the thoughts in your head With any luck, you’ll recognize by laughing at the thoughts in your head, you’ll be able to realize just how silly they are and your mind will relax Take deep breaths This is one of my all-time favorites, I this regularly before and after any situation that may happen Inhale and exhale deeply 10 times Make each breath slow and deliberate Your mind will be quiet by the end of the tenth exhale Move slower Make every action deliberate Like a Zen master makes tea, you will everything that you need to more slowly Notice every motion you make from start to finish, every action from beginning to end This will focus your mind on the task at hand and quiet the internal babbling The Art of Being Minimalist: How to Stop Consuming and Start Living | www.farbeyondthestars.com | Page 57 Talk to someone Sometimes the best way to quiet a mind is to talk over your thinking with another person Don’t vent your frustrations to them, because that’s just going to lead to another frustrated person Simply tell them what is going on in your mind and maybe both of you can come up with a solution Throw away your to-do list Once in awhile the lists get too long, they become overwhelming There are so many steps or actions that you need to take in day-to-day life that you may never see the end Why not just abandon whatever it is you’re doing? One of the best skills that anyone can master is the ability to learn how to quit when the time is right to so Take this moment to quit and your mind won’t have anything to worry about anymore Lie on the floor Nothing can beat a good lie on the floor Wherever you are, just stop doing what you’re doing and fall backwards Though be sure to take a look behind you to make sure there is nothing you will hit Then, stay on the floor for 15 minutes and just breathe Make a sandwich The action of deliberately preparing the bread, spreading hummus, cutting greens, and slicing meat can be a great way to clear your mind Be sure to take as much time as possible making the sandwich, not rush By the time you take the first bite, your mind will be silent Do the dishes Buddhist teachers love doing their dishes and with good reason The act of slowly cleaning one dish, washing it, and drying it, is a powerful way to focus and calm the mind The advent of dish-washing machines really has robbed us of a ritual we all can use to our advantage The Art of Being Minimalist: How to Stop Consuming and Start Living | www.farbeyondthestars.com | Page 58 Take a shower Step into a steaming hot shower and just bathe in the warmth This can be a powerful mind-clearer Don’t rush the shower, just let the water flow over your hair and down your body A hot shower, particularly before going to bed, can calm even the most active mind Light a candle The flicker of candle light can be a powerful way to calm your thoughts Set the candle in a place near where you can sit comfortably Take a match, strike it, and watch the wax melt Listen to relaxing music There’s nothing like calming music to quiet your brain Turn on some soft music, ideally without lyrics, and observe your mind as the thoughts fade away Do a yoga inversion Another one of the best ways to calm a mind is to turn yourself upside down My favorite way to this quickly, is to slide into Sarvangasana, or shoulder stand In this yoga pose you support your lower back with your hands and lift your feet over your head This pose changes the blood flow through the body in order to promote a healthy, quiet mind Let go of the problem In certain cases you may be plagued by something that you just can’t handle, you won’t be able to find a solution, you won’t be able to achieve everything you ever wanted Tell yourself that can’t this That’s okay, you tried Make space for the next ambitious goal and let this one go The Art of Being Minimalist: How to Stop Consuming and Start Living | www.farbeyondthestars.com | Page 59 THE (MINIMALIST) TIPPING POINT HOW SMALL CHOICES CAN CREATE a BIG IMPACT I spoke with a person recently who described themselves as ‘definitelynot-minimalist’ about how overwhelming it is to combat a world that is constantly calling on her to buy more and more She asked me how she could stop the cycle of consumerism in her own life She is a person who has been accumulating stuff an incredibly long time She was born in a generation that was defined by consumption and perpetuated by the prices of items falling at an incredible rate She bought into one of the great American dreams Success was stuff, America defined it But all of that has changed, the Internet has transformed our society into one that is fueled on information and ideas We can work from anywhere, if we let ourselves see that Past the basic essentials that you need to live, most of the stuff we filled our lives with doesn’t matter anymore What people don’t realize, when they’re on a ten or fifteen-year long consumption binge, is just how difficult it is to dig yourself out from the weight of all of this stuff They want to get out, they want to be free, but it’s overwhelming We can all understand this position We all know people who’ve been there, are going there We might have been there ourselves So, how to take the first steps toward a minimalist existence, if you don’t know how to begin? The Art of Being Minimalist: How to Stop Consuming and Start Living | www.farbeyondthestars.com | Page 60 Liberate yourself from the overwhelming weight of your useless possessions I firmly believe that you can’t get over stuff until you have a mindset change Chances are, if you’re reading this, you’re there already How you get to this realization? The first small choice you can make is to start to comprehend how much stuff costs you It costs money to store stuff you’re not using More stuff means a bigger house, if you have so much stuff you can’t fit in your house, then it means storing it Bigger houses cost money, storing stuff costs money Maybe take a moment and calculate how much you’re spending on your house and storage, paste this number on your wall I guarantee it will scare you Material possessions restrict your freedom If you wanted to move, could you? How much would it cost to move? Think about it, if you have one box of stuff, you could move whenever you wanted If you got bored of Cincinnati, you could be in Denver in no time Just pack a bag Think about it, if you had nothing but the essentials: You would have endless time to what you’re interested in You would have so much more money to achieve your dreams You would have the freedom to move about whenever you want Stuff takes up your time It takes time to sort through stuff and the more clutter you have, the harder it is to find things This leads to more time being wasted If time is money, then your stuff is putting you into massive debt By erasing your ties to your stuff, it’s like you’re paying off a massive loan that you didn’t even know you had The Art of Being Minimalist: How to Stop Consuming and Start Living | www.farbeyondthestars.com | Page 61 Do you think this unobtainable? It’s not I live this life, I have a backpack of stuff that I use every day I come and go as I please My life costs nothing besides food and housing, wherever I live, the rest of the money I save I work on the Internet, I could be anywhere Most of all, I’m happy It’s ultimate freedom and, most importantly, it’s possible for you, too This is how you start to free yourself: one thing at a time The first step: stop buying things If you find yourself contemplating buying something that’s not essential, take a breath, think about how much it actually costs Walk away To begin decluttering, just take one object every day and figure out what to with it Recycle it, donate it, throw it out If you feel like you can two, it If you feel like you can throw out a box of stuff, go for it This will accelerate into a cascading effect When you realize just how important it is to live a free and enjoyable life without having to worry about possession overload, nothing can stop you The next step: Give it all away There are so many people in the world that need the things that you’re using now They might only have money for food to feed their children They might not have the education that you or the opportunities that you had Give the stuff you don’t need to these people Donate it to a charitable organization or put it up for free on Craigslist or Freecycle Someone, somewhere, will appreciate your stuff It might even be useful to them The important part is to recognize that you don’t need it anymore, and then find the quickest way to get it all out of your life The Art of Being Minimalist: How to Stop Consuming and Start Living | www.farbeyondthestars.com | Page 62 Why We Need to Disconnect I’ve been thinking a lot about how noise in our communication dominates our lives There are so many people hitting the send/receive button at this moment, and refreshing their Gmail constantly I come across people who are following 11,000 people on Twitter, and I can’t help but wonder how they anything useful with all of those incoming messages Answer: they don’t There are some good messages out there in this dense fog of information, but you’re never going to find them if you listen to everyone Focus on the emails that are important Listen to the tweets that give you information you can use Filter out the rest We are the human curators of the digital renaissance It’s time to acknowledge that and take control of our incoming information stream We need to learn to sit in silence, the important comes in the moments when you’re not checking email The Art of Being Minimalist: How to Stop Consuming and Start Living | www.farbeyondthestars.com | Page 63 Simple Ways to DISCONNECT 1, Take a social network hiatus 5, Refuse to buy anything Don’t Tweet, Facebook, or engage with people on any social networking platform that you may use It’s really fun to Tweet and hear all of the amazing people respond Do you really want to spend all Sunday morning glued to Tweetdeck though? Cook someone a good breakfast instead! Take a break from consumerism and don’t go shopping or eat out for one day Make sure you have enough food to prepare before you start this Leave your credit cards and cash at home if you go out 2, Ignore all calls Unplug all of the appliances and lights in your house (don’t this to the fridge, your food will spoil.) Pretend you’re no-impact man for a day, and see how it is You’ll notice that you won’t have any light after a certain hour, so either light a candle or sit in silence until it’s time for bed Don’t answer the phone at all this weekend It doesn’t matter if it’s your mom or your boss calling, just choose not to pick up the telephone In fact, turn it off Go to the beach instead, if you live somewhere that’s not as cold as it is here in New York Otherwise, maybe just grab a coffee and watch people walk by 3, Don’t check your email Just let it sit there, trust me, it will be there come Monday morning Too often we spend hours of our lives hitting the refresh button on e-mail Take the exact opposite approach and don’t check it at all 6, Don’t use any electricity 7, Don’t use transportation Don’t take the subway, don’t drive your car, don’t even bike Just walk if you need to go anywhere I love walking into Manhattan on weekends to take Yoga It makes me appreciate my surroundings so much more A two hour walk somewere can be very meditative 4, Spend a day in silence Just go about your day without speaking to anyone Observe your thoughts Read a book Be sure to let anyone who might be offended know what you’re doing, so they don’t get mad The Art of Being Minimalist: How to Stop Consuming and Start Living | www.farbeyondthestars.com | Page 64 HOW TO FOCUS ON THE IMPORTANT I know a woman who wants to move to France She’s wanted to move there for a number of years I asked her if she would make it there by 2020, and she wasn’t sure if that was enough time She’ll be nearly 60 in 2020 I told her she could it in less than a year Why not just go to France, if that’s where you want to be? Many people spend so much time talking about what they wish they had the willpower to achieve If these people spent half as long talking and more time doing the work to get them to their goal every single day, eventually they might just get there Achieving your goals ultimately comes down to focusing on your priorities However, many people seek simply to avoid setting them • Instead of starting a business, a person continues to work at Starbucks • Instead of traveling the world, a person buys an SUV It’s also important to realize when you have handicapped yourself by using a ‘when this happens, then I’ll this.’ statement Like, ‘if only I had a million dollars, I’d start my own business and travel the world!’ Realistically you’ll never earn a million dollars, so you’ll never achieve your dream My biggest goal right now is to support myself by writing this e-book This naturally means that my daily focus is writing incredibly valuable articles in this e-book It is absolutely essential that you take a moment and think about what your ultimate goal is, in this moment, and prioritize it Make this single goal the most important activity of every day Even if you are working at Starbucks, your day doesn’t revolve around Starbucks It’s just where you go to work, but meanwhile your brain is thinking about photography The Art of Being Minimalist: How to Stop Consuming and Start Living | www.farbeyondthestars.com | Page 65 How to focus on your It’s okay to have other interests, but only give yourself one priority Now, there’s no reason why you can’t have multiple interests (minor priorities) at any one time, but I think it’s important to just focus on one overarching priority If you have 17 priorities it’s really hard to find the time to one thing every day to further them A girl named Jane wrote to me once, listing her many priorities: writing, photography, web design, and teaching She recognized that she couldn’t focus on all of them at once and she is totally right You can’t master all of these things at one time I recommended that she pick one to work towards mastering, before investing too much time in the others priorities to achieve greater success • Select one overall priority that you care about intrinsically • Break down the priority into manageable steps that are actionable But it is also worth noting that she can be all of these things that she listed • Spend at least an hour (more if you can) every day working towards it In fact, all of these skills compliment each other in significant ways A web designer/ photographer/writer/teacher is a very different professional than just a photographer A photographer who cannot write will have difficulty communicating with her subjects and gathering contacts If she cannot design a website, she will have to pay a web designer to put her work online Teaching photography is one of the best ways a photographer can network with clients and other photographers • Be accountable Tell everyone you’re moving to France by 2011 • Map your progress in the short term and what you’ve achieved in the longer term • Reward yourself when you’ve made sufficient progress The Art of Being Minimalist: How to Stop Consuming and Start Living | www.farbeyondthestars.com | Page 66 At various times in my own life I’ve invested thousands of hours in the very same skills Jane listed Earlier in my life (probably between the ages of 12-16) I wanted to be a web designer, so I built many websites Later, I choose to concentrate on photography (1823), so I spent thousands of hours taking photos This eventually led to a job as a photo editor (21-24) where I spent thousands more hours making photos look brilliant on stories which were published on websites It’s perfectly acceptable to shift your priorities; I think it’s only natural that they will change over time time Priorities change over We are human beings, not robots, and our interests morph as we achieve various levels of skill If you force yourself to stick with one path, when you really want to change it, then you’ll end up being incredibly unhappy Let the other priorities become less important until you’ve attained some level of mastery in the first I’ve spent many years maintaining writing as a passive activity, while I was focusing on art directing and photography I didn’t stress about writing I still wrote as often as possible, but not on a schedule Two summers ago I filled two Moleskins with a novel, without even making it a priority That novel still isn’t a priority, but it was a big passive step towards being a better writer, as I was focusing on larger priorities Now that writing is my ultimate focus, all of that passive work behind the scenes has come to the forefront The pieces are fitting together and the results I’m seeing are extraordinary What are your priorities? How are you working towards them? The Art of Being Minimalist: How to Stop Consuming and Start Living | www.farbeyondthestars.com | Page 67 The secret to happiness Let me tell you a secret, one that all of materialistic society doesn’t want you to know Ready for it? The first best step you can take to be happy, right here, right now, is to stop buying useless physical objects that you think will make you happy They will only make you sad and you will feel more trapped by society than you already are You’ve been deceived by advertising and people who want to make money off of you into this pattern that’s robbing you of happiness and your wealth Isn’t that outrageous? To make yourself happy, the second best step you can take is to start eliminating the clutter in your life Do this until you’ve pared down your possessions to the absolute necessities for your life This opens up a whole new can of worms, I know You’re probably looking at all of your stuff and wondering what you can to start getting rid of things This isn’t going to be easy, the more clutter you have, the larger the project The Art of Being Minimalist: How to Stop Consuming and Start Living | www.farbeyondthestars.com | Page 68 WHAT NOW? 1, Get started Now that you know the power of being minimalist, it’s time to get started Start small or just burn down your house You have the tools to become a minimalist, but it’s no good if you don’t use them 2, Share This with friends I want you to send this e-book to five of your friends I know you paid for it, but that’s okay I give you permission to spread this idea to five more people for free Just attach this e-book to an email and send Please don’t spam people though (I’m not keeping track, so you can share with 15 if you want.) 3, Join the minimalist Tribe The Art of Being Minimalist is just the beginning I write about being minimalist three days a week on my blog Far Beyond The Stars I hope you’ll sign up to receive free updates via RSS or Email You can follow me on Twitter too, I’m @evbogue 4, Say hello I want you to say hello Drop me an email at evbogue@gmail.com I’d love to learn more about your minimalist journey Thank you for reading this e-book -Everett Bogue The Art of Being Minimalist: How to Stop Consuming and Start Living | www.farbeyondthestars.com | Page 69 CREDITS Author, Photographer, Designer: Everett Bogue Copy editor: Chris O’Byrne Additional editing: Dave White THANK YOU Thanks must go out to the whole online minimalist community for their support over the last few months, I wish I could thank you all here but the space is too small Thank you to: Leo Babauta for pioneering most of these ideas online, and for letting his audience know about my work Tammy Strobel for helping with everything from the beginning Seth Godin, for writing Tribes and all of his other books My girlfriend, Alix, for putting up with me while I took off across the country with all of my stuff on my back I couldn’t have written this ebook without you This e-book is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License (details.) The Art of Being Minimalist: How to Stop Consuming and Start Living | www.farbeyondthestars.com | Page 70