Minimalism – Living The FIgh Life

The Case For Scanning Your Old Photos Yourself

My wife and I bought a $600 high-quality photo scanner and spent the time to cull, organize, and scan our 10,000 or so pre-digital hard copy photos. We are so glad we did! Now, they are a seamless part of our digital photo collection. Our pictures are always with us and we can easily search by date, topic, location, or face—memory dividends we cash in on frequently.

But there are services available to do this! Couldn’t we have spent a few more dollars and had someone else scan our photos, saving countless hours of work while getting the same or better quality result?

Unfortunately, no. Those services may look like a great idea at first glance, but the companies offering photo scanning services charge a lot of money to provide a lower overall quality product, AND you still do the lion’s share of the work.

When my wife and I became minimalists and decided to scan our numerous boxes of photo albums and loose photos, we thought a photo scanning service would be the way to go. I researched numerous companies and concluded that if you want your old photos to be completely digitized, readily accessible, and in chronological order, you really need to do it yourself. Here are 5 reasons why you should keep your money in your pocket and take on this project yourself.

You Spend A Lot of Your Time Either Way

This was a big eye-opener: only you can decide what photos to keep, and culling and organizing is what takes the most time in this project (we culled out about 30%). Saving time wasn’t in the cards. You, the owner of the photos, are the one who must remove the photos from the albums (or frames) and arrange them in size order in the company-provided boxes and insert note cards with year and event name (if allowed). Then after the scanned photos are returned, spend countless hours by hand fixing rotation and re-dating them to get some semblance of chronological order. Since this does not change the photo file’s metadata, this work likely disappears if you change photo organization solutions.

You still have to deal with any photos the company rejected (too thick, too small, too large, too misshapen, too much residue on photos, etc.). This would have been thousands of photos in our case, so I would have needed to get my own scanner to capture them anyway.

These companies are only scanning the easiest photos in the easiest possible way (for them). All the essential prep work of culling and organizing, post work of hand rotating and re-dating, as well as scanning the more challenging photos remains in your hands no matter what. That’s the heart of the job. What companies are offering to do—for a hefty fee—is the simple part. You have to invest the time no matter what.

You Get to Include More of Your Photos

Companies limit photo size from 3×3 to 8×10. That means all your old photos outside that range will either not be in your digital collection, or you’ll end up scanning them yourself anyway. I was able to scan wallet sized photos (sometimes I taped two together to make it work), photo booth strips, misshapen, fragile, or torn photos, thick old polaroids, and larger photos (e.g., 8×14).

Companies reject photos with any residue. Thousands of our photos had sticky residue, old glue, or paper stuck to the back after being carefully removed from old family albums and scrapbooks. I was able to coax almost all of these photos through the scanner by turning them or removing residue (I couldn’t scan only about 20 photos out of 7,000!). A company would never even try to do this, but we did the work and we are so glad to have all of these photos in our collection.

Photo on Left: Having fun with our kids in a photo booth

You Get Much Better Chronological Ordering

Companies don’t add past dates to the photos and generally require photos to be organized by size. So all 3x3s are together, 4x6s are together, 5x7s, 8x10s, etc. Yikes! This means that they will show up in your online photo collection in this jumbled non-chronological order unless you spend many hours re-dating them. I organized and scanned our photos dating them by month and year regardless of size. As a result, we had to do only very limited re-dating (e.g., putting the baby shower before the birth in the same month). Unless you hand re-date them, your old photos will show up in your collection with the date the company scanned them, not when they were taken.

Fun wallet-sized photos a scanning service would have rejected (I taped the two together and scanned them)

You Get a Better Product

In addition to having a more complete photo collection and better chronological ordering including better file metadata when you scan it yourself, you can add location or event name in the photo file name for improved search capability. You also have more control over scan quality. Some companies scan at 300 dpi (dots per inch) while many scan at 600 dpi. Doing it myself, I could choose based on the photos and adjust the file size. I scanned most of my photos at the higher quality 600 dpi, and some important photos at 1200 dpi. This quality and flexibility just isn’t available from a company.

A scanning service would have rejected this circular-shaped photo of our family supporting our son as a baby.

You Save Money

I put this last because saving money wasn’t my highest priority. If companies provided a service worth paying for, I would have done it. But why pay a lot more money to a company only to get an inferior product and wind up putting in the same amount of time as if you scanned them yourself?

We spent $600 on a new, high-quality scanner. We could have sold it and recouped much of the value, but we decided to give it to a relative to scan her photos (and she will pass it onto others in our family). I researched estimates to scan our 7,000 photos—one company estimated $4,300, another company $4200, while a third was $1668. The least expensive I found was $1,340 for non-chronological scanning. By scanning our photos ourselves, we got a better product and saved a lot of money. Your savings, if you do it yourself, will vary based on the number of photos you need scanned. The only way we could get the great results we now enjoy—at any price—was to do it ourselves.

Now that all of our old photos are scanned in by date, we have enjoyed and shared them far more in the last 2 years than we had over the last three decades combined. These are treasured memories of our lives. Doing the work ourselves was well worth it!

A photo from my parent’s wedding — so much fun to readily share these old photos with family and friends!

Cashing In On Memory Dividends

My wife and I are celebrating our 35th wedding anniversary this year (and 38 years of being a couple). While on a public ferry in Luxor, Egypt we quizzed each other on the many other ferry boats we had ridden together. We each remembered examples the other hadn’t. It was a fun walk down memory lane from the British Columbia ferry we rode on our honeymoon to a recent public row boat from the cities of Rabat to Salé across the Bou Regreg river in Morocco [see photo above].

In another example, my Uncle Dave (on my wife’s side) passed away recently. When reminiscing about what a great uncle he was with Aunt Bonnie (his wife), I pulled up my photos on my laptop of Uncle Dave using our photo software face recognition feature. Aunt Bonnie and I had a lovely moment together reminiscing and celebrating her husband’s life and how he had been a part of our lives.

In each of these examples we were cashing in on our memory dividends. And by doing it with someone close, we enjoyed it even more.

The power of compounding is an important part of a financial plan. Over many years (decades) interest and dividends earned from investments grows exponentially and can outgrow the original amount invested. Memory dividends work similarly and I would argue are more important investments than our financial ones. We have the opportunity to create lasting memories everyday with ourselves and with our friends and family. But often we could do better in taking the time to cement them in our memories so we don’t forgo opportunities to enjoy them later.

Here are a few ideas to help maximize our memory dividends—both for making them and for cashing them in.

Invest in Close Long-Term Relationships (and cash in on those investments regularly)

Having hundreds of “friends” on social media is not the same as having several close friends (and family) that you invest quality time with. While Facebook attempts to leverage the power of memory dividends by frequently reminding us of our old posts (which often make me smile), it misses the bigger point of building long-term, real human relationships.

I have known my oldest friend since the 5th grade. Other than a year as college roommates, we haven’t lived near each other for going on 40 years. But we have worked to stay connected through letters (yes, before email), phone calls, and hanging out when visiting back home. Looking to invest even more in our friendship, we created a new tradition in 2011. Each year since (COVID excepted) we have enjoyed a long weekend in a city somewhere around the country to see a football or baseball game together. The game is an excuse—we just hang out and catch up on the world and each other. We joke about our joint high school graduation speech that I screwed up, reminisce about our time in college, analyse our favorite sports teams, and share about our kids whom we both know so well. We invest in each other and we cash in on our memories together.

With my best friend at our first annual game weekend together (Lambeau Field) — with my inexpensive watch

I now similarly connect with my family and other close friends. As a full-time world traveler, I have numerous scheduled video calls each week with family and friends to help keep these connections strong when I am far away. When I am back in the US, I spend months visiting with family and friends—making new memories and cashing in on the dividends from these long-term relationships.

Investing the vast majority of our limited time into our closest relationships provides the highest return in memory dividends.

Divest of middling and casual relationships.

When I became a minimalist, I divested of the physical possessions and tasks that did not support my top values. This meant letting go of things I liked but were preventing me from achieving what I wanted to do the most. It changed who I was.

Likewise I divested of relationships that were preventing me from fully focusing on the close family and friends I wanted to invest more in. When I retired early, I discovered that most of my work friends were just that—friends at work. Once I stopped working, these friendships quickly dissipated as they were not built on a deep human connection, but one of a temporary nature to fulfill a professional need. To be clear, I am happy to answer a phone call, email, text message, or chat during a chance encounter, but I no longer proactively invest in peripheral relationships. Instead, I redirect my limited resources into more meaningful long-term relationships—with a focus on spending quality time in person.

We need to be careful not to spread ourselves too thin and inadvertently starve the relationships that mean the most to us.

Make The Day-To-Day A Little More Memorable

While it is easier to recount fabulous vacations to exotic places like Egypt, the Grand Canyon, or other exciting and photo-worthy destinations, don’t forget to make memories in your day-to-day life. Having a weekly family game night, pancakes on Sunday mornings, frequent local camping trips, and time reading books aloud together all helped mark our time spent together with family and friends. For example, to make our family staycations more fun and memorable, our family of four each took charge of a day. During each person’s day they made a meal, picked a place to eat out and decided on the entertainment for the day which varied to include, board games, bake-offs, museums, movies, lots of hikes, and once even an escape room. One person was in charge and the rest of the family agreed to happily follow (reducing decision fatigue!). We started this tradition when our kids were a bit older and we made fabulous memories that we enjoy reliving together.

Results of our family bake-off. Mine came in last (far right) despite including a bribe of a fine whiskey in the middle.

Take Photos and Look at Them

We tend to take a lot of photos of our time on vacation, when our children are young, and at big events (weddings, graduations, holidays, and sporting events). But we often don’t take a photo of playing a board game together, sharing a home-cooked meal, or of a walk together along the neighborhood trails. Don’t let the memories of the enjoyment of day-to-day life go undocumented. Having a lot of great photos is one thing, but looking at them is another.

If you were born before 1980, you probably have a sizable portion of your photos as hard copies—my wife and I certainly did. Scanning in over 7,000 pics was a lot of work, but well worth it. Now our pictures are always with us and we can easily search by date, topic, location, or face. My dad was recently on my mind (he passed away from Alzheimer’s in 2024), so even though I was abroad, I pulled up my photos of him to remind me.

We have looked at and shared these old photos more in the last 18 months than we had in the last 20 years! When we start reminiscing with our family and friends we are quick to share photos of those times together.

With my Dad in 1996, well before the effects of Alzheimer’s took hold of him. (from my old hard copy photos I scanned)

Reminisce

We can strengthen our memories through recall. We can certainly do this ourselves. I keep a list of all of the books I have read (at least the books I could remember when I made the list in 2009). I enjoy being reminded of the stories and concepts as I occasionally peruse the list. Keeping a journal can help. I have long-resisted keeping a diary or journaling. Honestly it sounded hokey. But my wife journals everyday and I have come to appreciate its value. She keeps a simple record of where we were, who we saw, what we did and ate each day. It has been invaluable in helping us cash in on memory dividends.

Reminiscing alone is certainly good, but doing it with family and friends compounds the memory dividends as you help each other remember even more than you would by yourself and we get to enjoy them together. This can be done in many ways. My wife and I created a list of how we celebrated our wedding anniversaries each year and of the plays we have seen together. We keep a small box of “What we are grateful for” that we bring out each Thanksgiving. We enjoy reading what we wrote from years past and we complete a new card, investing for future memory dividends.

Quizzes help us learn school materials and they can be a fun game with family and friends to help us reminisce together and strengthen our memories. My daughter is great at coming up with fun quizzes (our favorite camping spot?, favorite food on vacation?, our favorite home exchange?, and so on) that get us all sharing fun memories together. We will often quiz each other at the end of a vacation which helps cement our memories and starts cashing in on our memory dividends we just made—no need to wait!

Investing in memories and cashing in on them isn’t about living in the past. It is about enjoying your life today with those closest to you and building a life of contentment. Make new memories AND make time to cash in on these memory investments with family and friends.

The More of Minimalism

Minimalism has had a profoundly positive impact on my life. I’m healthier and calmer, I have more time and flexibility with money, and I’m more content overall. In an effort to share why I have chosen a minimalist life and why it is so rewarding to me, here are my eight benefits of being a minimalist:

1. More Time to Focus on What I Value

Minimalism helped me focus on my highest priorities. By getting rid of the physical things from activities that were not my highest priorities (e.g., canning equipment, guitar and musical gear, biking gear, and old collections), I was able to shift the pieces of time spent on each of these lower-priority pursuits to my more important priorities. I now have more time to travel, be with family and friends, take care of myself, be outdoors, and follow my curiosity.

By pursuing these top priorities and letting go of the rest, I found I didn’t need 98% of my belongings and I became a different person in the process. The exact percentage isn’t important—the number will vary from person to person—but I think almost everyone’s personal belongings will significantly decrease when we focus on only those priorities that truly matter to us and let go of all the stuff belonging to lower priorities. Now I spend a lot less time researching, buying, repairing, cleaning, and disposing of stuff I don’t need. This provides me an enormous amount of time to do what I value most.

I also save time managing all that stuff. During my years as an active duty military member, I moved houses 13 times in 20 years. By my 5th move, I had 5 sets of heavy-duty metal shelving for garage or basement storage and 6 sets of tall plastic shelves for closets, utility rooms, and attic storage. Every move I would spend hours (days?) getting our 17,000 lbs of possessions stacked and stored. Many of the boxes I never even opened between moves, but often shuffled them around to reach other boxes. I would frequently open and dig through numerous boxes trying to find something I thought I had—wasting valuable time. When I got rid of all that stuff, I reclaimed my time.

More time for camping (Flathead Lake Montana)

2. More Money to Focus on What I Value

Similar to freeing up time to do what I value most, minimalism frees up thousands of dollars to invest or spend on the things I value most. Minimalism has freed me from the desire for more stuff to manage, clean, organize, and store. I no longer buy souvenirs or collectibles. I don’t buy new clothes for each season. I don’t buy in bulk or because an item is on sale. I also don’t need to buy storage bins, shelves, dressers, and the myriad of other things I used to organize and store all that stuff. Instead of spending money on the latest single-use kitchen gadget, electronic upgrade that I don’t need (or want), or containers to hold them, I redirect those monies toward charity, family and friends, travel, our early retirement, and the other experiences and hobbies I value the most.

3. More Physical and Mental Whitespace

My excess stuff added visual and mental noise to my life. My possessions demanded to be cleaned, fixed, maintained, used, and sold. Not only did my stuff take up my time and clutter my space, it also cluttered my mind with a constant stream of “shoulds”—a mental to-do list if you will. As I became a minimalist and decreased the amount of stuff I owned, I also freed myself from these numerous unwanted mental conversations. It was calming and mentally quieter.

With my few remaining possessions I had the mental conversations I did want to have. I can say yes more often to the books I want to read, yes to more travel, and yes to more quality time with family and friends. Likewise, by letting go of lower-priority commitments, I gained invaluable whitespace between my remaining activities—time to reflect, rest, and recharge.

I now dedicate a portion of time to doing nothing—to let my mind rest. Our brains need downtime to process all of the inputs that we feed it everyday. Having time to meditate, walk in nature, or just be is crucial to our mental well-being. I have learned to say yes to my health!

4. More Calm

Choosing to focus only on my top priorities freed my schedule. I no longer stress about getting from one activity to the next or having to choose between the multitude of tasks demanding to be completed. By letting go of our two cars, for example, I let go of my driving-induced stressed persona. I disliked who I became when driving in traffic—trying to will lights and other drivers to accommodate my tight schedule. It was stress I didn’t need. Now, when I do need to drive, I build in extra time, so I can mitigate many of the potential stressors of navigating the roads with my fellow humans. By reducing and focusing my commitments, I am able to build in extra time in my schedule that results in fewer activity conflicts, fewer tight transportation connections, far less stress, and much more calm

5. More Flexibility

Having less stuff means more flexibility to do what I want and live where I want. In my old life, I had to pass over several great rental houses because my family’s 17,000 lbs of stuff just wouldn’t fit. So I ended up with more expensive and less desirable houses. But now as a minimalist, I have increased flexibility and choices. I can easily move apartments if the rent is raised too high or the owner decides not to renew my lease. I don’t need a large moving van and crew of packers and movers to move my stuff. A minivan will do the trick if moving locally or a small low-cost self-loaded U-Haul box if I am moving farther.

This benefit is particularly useful as a full-time nomadic traveler. I only have a carry-on suitcase because I don’t need many clothes and I don’t want physical souvenirs. So I rarely pay for or deal with checked baggage. My backpack and suitcase are easy to carry on public transportation, up steps, or across bumpy terrain. They are easy to pack and unpack as we move from location to location.

As a minimalist, I easily adapt to the leanly-stocked short-stay accommodations. My apartment in Chiang Mai, Thailand, for example, only has two plates, two spoons, two forks, two wine glasses, two tumblers, etc. My wife and I don’t need more. I am content to wash these few dishes each day and enjoy the calm of the uncluttered space. Minimalism has increased my freedom.

We can easily move our remaining belongings at a moments notice

6. More Kindness to My Heirs

Every possession comes with an IOU. A future debt of time to care for and responsibly dispose of the item. Having a lot fewer possessions greatly reduces the workload shifted to your loved ones when you pass away. It took my wife and I many months to sell, donate, or otherwise responsibly dispose of our household of stuff. During that process we offered many things to our kids and other family members, only to discover that they wanted very little of what we owned. By pairing down our over 17,000 lbs of stuff, we have saved our kids the hard work of disposing of these items. We saved them time figuring out what was truly important in our lives. We also updated our wills and medical directives and let our kids know where our online possessions resided and how to access them. Pairing down now is both a gift to yourself while you are alive and a future gift to your heirs. We never know when our time on Earth will be up.

7. More Kindness to the Planet

In becoming a minimalist, I have realized that I don’t need or want a second (or third) set of dishes, a closet full of rarely worn clothes, or a bevy of decor items. Having less stuff, and using the little stuff I do have for its full useful life, uses fewer of our Earth’s limited resources. If I don’t take something off the store shelf (or purchase items much less frequently), then the company isn’t going to immediately obtain the natural resources and spend the energy to make a replacement item, package it in layers of cardboard and plastics, and refill the shelf space for the next customer. Having less is a gift for the planet, which in turn is a gift to ourselves, our kids, and our neighbors.

8. More Contentment

Minimalism has helped me recognize what is truly enough—enough money, enough stuff, enough commitments. I no longer pursue happiness. According to research, sixty percent of my happiness is out of my control. It is fleeting, and it places too much weight on what I own and do. I don’t need my bed, my food, my workout, or my clothes to make me happy. They just need to do their jobs. Instead, I pursue contentment in my simpler life. Contentment allows room for both the bliss and grief that are part of everyone’s experience. Recent examples in my own life include moments of bliss at my children’s college graduations and grief for my dad’s passing, but still being content. Always pursuing happiness can crowd out sadness, fear, and grief. I have more emotional flexibility and mental clarity when my goal is contentment. I can obtain a fully contented life because I have found enough.

I am enough.

Minimalism Changed Who I Am.

I used to be a cyclist, gardener, canner, aspiring musician, soccer coach, coin collector, stamp collector, home owner, DIY handyman, and Department of Defense hospitality expert.

I am no longer those things. I found that by selling, giving away, or otherwise disposing of my guitars, soccer gear, biking gear, coin and stamp collections, work files, house, and many, many, other possessions related to these pursuits, I was freed from the personas that took away my time and focus from the things that I wanted to be and do the most.

In his time management book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, Oliver Burkman challenges us to focus on our top priorities. He shares a story attributed to Warren Buffet, in which the billionaire advises us to make a list of our top 25 priorities, then focus on the top 5 only, actively avoiding the remaining 20 items. Those items prevent us from spending the time needed to do our highest priorities very well.

Burkman himself is not this prescriptive. He explains, “You needn’t embrace the specific practice of listing out your goals (I don’t, personally) to appreciate the underlying point, which is that in a world of too many big rocks, it’s the moderately appealing ones—the fairly interesting job opportunity, the semi-enjoyable friendship—on which a finite life can come to grief.”

This concept was an eye-opening revelation for me. In order to focus on what I wanted to be and do the most, I needed to eliminate my lower priorities. In my case, that meant retiring my many appealing personas listed above, and focusing on the ones that are core for me: husband, father, friend, traveler, camper/hiker, personal finance coach, and lifelong student. Since one of my top priorities was to travel the world nomadically with just a carry-on and a backpack, I needed to do some major downsizing. I fully embraced minimalism with some surprising results.

But this downsizing is a lot easier said than done. For me, it was a long process. I truly enjoyed learning to play an instrument, gardening, and coaching soccer. To give up the things that went along with those pursuits wasn’t just getting rid of stuff I no longer valued. I was giving up valuable, but lower priority, pursuits that were preventing me from fully doing what I valued the most.

The hardest things for me to let go of were my electric guitar, amp, and case, the accessories of my dream of learning to play the guitar. I had wanted to play classic rock tunes around a campfire. On two separate occasions, I took weekly lessons for months on end. I practiced a lot, though not enough, since my identity as a musician wasn’t one of my top pursuits (and it had so much competition from my other middling-priority identities). During my second set of lessons, I spent over a $1,000 upgrading my $80 acoustic guitar for a new electric guitar and amp, thinking better equipment would help me learn quicker (it didn’t). I made small progress but not really enough to be satisfying.

After I stopped taking lessons and practicing, the new guitar remained a constant guilty reminder of the time and money I had sunk into learning to play. When I sold my (lightly used) electric guitar, amp, and case back to the music store I bought it from (at a fraction of the price), I felt free! I was giving myself permission to no longer strive to be a musician. I no longer had this physical reminder scolding me “You should practice music. Remember, it is the seventh most important thing you want to accomplish!” It was a conversation with stuff that I didn’t want to have any more.

The time and money I spent trying to learn to play the guitar took time away from what I really wanted to do—read, travel, learn a language, and take better care of myself. Likewise, by getting rid of my canning equipment, lawn care equipment, tools, old files, old collections, job (I retired early), cars, and house, I released myself from numerous commitments and freed up enormous time and resources.

Because camping is one of my top priorities, I kept my camping gear (tent, sleeping bags, inflatable mattress, and cookware) neatly stored in my friend’s basement near Seattle. These possessions support my top values as each summer I return to the beautiful Pacific Northwest and enjoy weeks of camping among the evergreens.

Each person’s top priorities will likely be much different than mine, and of course top priorities can certainly change over time. When my life of traveling winds down, I may decide to return to a house and gardening or maybe pick up the harmonica.

It’s a useful exercise to distinguish your most important pursuits from the lower priority pursuits getting in your way. You may decide that learning a musical instrument is your top priority, so you’ll get that dusty guitar out of the basement and give it pride of place (and time and money) in your newly cleaned living space. You might ditch the tent that I decided to keep. The key is to hone in on your own top priorities, keep the few items that help you in those limited pursuits, and discard all the possessions that are part of lower-priority pursuits.

Having newfound time and resources to focus on world traveling, my relationships, reading, sleeping, stretching, and hiking has been amazing. I have traveled more this year (2024) than any other year. I have read more books this year than any other, including my years in college. I have spent more meaningful hours with my close family and friends than I had before embracing minimalism, because I had a clearer focus on why they were important to me. I walk and hike more than ever. I am constantly learning new things and tackling my foreign language proficiency goal.

I have swapped the elusive pursuit of happiness with the pursuit of contentment because I found that “enough” is fulfilling—enough in what I have, enough in what I do, and enough in who I am.

Doing fewer things better is…better! Removing the physical possessions around these lower-priority identities made it happen. By getting rid of these possessions, I gave myself permission to focus on the core of who I really wanted to be. Minimalism changed who I was.

Ask Yourself Tough Questions And Let The Answers Change You

[This was first published on the minimalism and lifestyle blog No Sidebar.]

My wife and I sold or gave away 98 percent of our belongings which enabled us to achieve our goal to become full-time nomadic travelers in July 2023. In my pursuit of a simpler life with fewer things, I had to ask myself tough questions. I needed to––I was a self-described “collector of collections” and had a lot of stuff when I started this journey.

Asking myself the popular question about whether something sparked joy didn’t work for me. I found it too easy to confuse any “joy” I felt for a possession with the fleeting enjoyment of a shiny new object––that proverbial “new car smell.” Sometimes I needed to get rid of something even if I really liked it. On the other hand, important possessions I used everyday didn’t spark joy and they didn’t need to. They just needed to do their jobs.

Instead, I found that I needed to ask myself different questions depending on the item in my hands. Six tough questions helped me identify what I wanted to change in myself in relation to what I owned. When I took the time to reach my answer, I changed my relationship with each item, freeing myself to make clear-minded decisions whether to keep or let go.

1. Do my emotions connected to this item exist only because I possess it?

Many of my possessions had sentimental value. For example, love letters from dating my wife 37 years ago, awards I received during my military career, keepsakes given to me from relatives, and a lifetime of collectibles all carried emotional weight. But I found that the feelings were independent of the items––they existed in me. I could feel the achievement of my military career without keeping the physical awards and the nostalgia for dating my wife without all the letters. I found taking a few quality photos helped me detach the emotions from the physical items.

Photo reminder of some hard-to-get coins awarded to me during my military career

2. Do my family and friends really care if I let go of this thing they gave me?

When my wife and I were first married, her parents gave us the family’s upright piano, the one her great-grandmother danced around in delight when her great-grandfather brought it home in the 1930s. As a military family, we moved that 600-pound piece of musical furniture to 14 different houses. It didn’t fit in our lives, but it had the weight of family expectations––we were the keepers of a family heirloom. When we finally gave it away, we didn’t give away our memory of and love for her great-grandmother, and we didn’t lose the love of our family. I discovered that my family and friends weren’t nearly as disappointed (usually not at all) as I believed they would be when I let go of something they had given me. My guilt was self-imposed.

3. If I let go of these excess clothes, do I care if people see me wear the same clothes on a frequent basis?

Subconsciously, I used to care a lot. I let marketing companies and the middle-school fashionistas of my past impact my adult behavior. Once I realized that it was really me enforcing their rules on what I should wear, I freed myself to wear what I wanted––a few functional, durable clothes. My colors are mostly gray (my daughter lovingly calls it my “groutfit”) and I’m sure I look the same in every photo, but my clothes now reflect my values and take up a lot less space.

Wearing my “groutfit” as I travel (Prambanan Temple, Indonesia)

4. Is this possession an investment or an expense?

I held the notion that many of the items I collected over the years were investments and would be worth a lot of money someday. I felt that I had to keep them until I got my perceived value for them. As I downsized, I learned in most cases my possessions were not worth what I thought they were, both in dollars and in my effort to get that money. My stamp collection (couldn’t find a buyer), coin collection (sold most for melt value), Seinfeld DVD set (garage sale price), electric guitar (sold at 40% of retail), autographed Wedgewood vase (gave to charity), Irish Belleek china (garage sale), and more were not worth even close to what was paid for them, and it would take a lot of my valuable time to get more than dimes on the dollar.

5. Can I borrow or rent this item instead of owning it?

I enjoyed collecting a fairly large bookshelf full of books, but came to realize that there are very few books––physical, digital, or audio––that I can’t get from my excellent local public library. When I need them, I can rent tools, a bicycle, a car, and a suit. And if I ever miss the sight of my old collectibles (I haven’t yet), I can visit stamp or coin shops, antique stores, and museums any time and see more wonderful collections than I ever had.

6. How do I handle new items that come to my doorstep?

Once I used the five questions above to let go of all my excess possessions, there was one more important question I needed to maintain my newfound freedom: how do I keep new stuff out? Do I add them to my inventory of items to manage? Having dealt with decades of the “collect-purge-collect-purge” cycle, sustainable change began when I stopped collecting in the first place. I stopped shopping. Oh, I still buy an item like a shirt or shoes when I really need it, but shopping as entertainment is no longer part of my life. I politely let relatives and friends know I value experiences (eating out, visiting a museum, and travel) and consumables (homemade cookies or a bottle of craft gin) over physical possessions. For gifts that I can’t dissuade someone from giving, I find a new home for it and don’t let it become a part of my life.

The answers to my 6 tough questions changed my relationship with the things I owned and was the start of a newfound freedom. I encourage someone starting this journey to find the questions that work best for you. Asking yourself tough questions to identify the underlying internal and external forces behind why you have what you have will help you hone your values and discard items that are not in alignment with those values.

This is a sister post to my post “The Metamorphosis to Becoming A Minimalist“

Decluttering My Mind: Eliminating conversations with my stuff

Before I embraced minimalism, I loved to go camping. In the woods I noticed how quiet my mind was. It wasn’t just bathing in the trees that was calming. I enjoyed not being reminded by my multitude of belongings of the many chores I needed to get done at home. Similarly, when I was in a hotel for a few days, I didn’t have mental conversations with the items in the room. The wallpaper with the lifting seam, the fake floral arrangement that needed dusting, or the floor tiles with the marks were not talking to me. They had someone else to bother. But before minimalism, my stuff at home was not so quiet.

Each time I walked past our silver bowl on our living room bookcase shelf it talked to me. It nagged “You should polish me, I don’t look good tarnished.” and I’d say, “OK, but I’m busy now, maybe next time.” My car would demand “you should wash me” or “change my oil.” My guitar reminded me “You should play me,” or “I will get out of tune and you will lose your callouses that you worked so hard to acquire.” My stamp collection scolded me, “Being packed in this box could damage the stamps.” My canning equipment asked me “When will you can some more jalapeños? Am I just taking up space over here?”

Throughout my house, my stuff was engaging me in “conversations.” Some of them I liked. My favorite book whispered, “you will love the next chapter,” but I told it I’m too busy because I should change the oil in the car, or polish that damn bowl, or play the guitar, or clean the shed, or dust, fix, or organize all of my other things. Most of the conversations I didn’t like. I constantly “should-ed” on myself due to my self-imposed guilt from everything my stuff demanded I do.

Not only did my stuff take up my time and clutter my space, it cluttered my mind with a barrage of “talk.” As I underwent a metamorphosis to become a minimalist and decreased the amount of stuff I owned, I also freed myself from these innumerable mental conversations. It was calming.

By prioritizing what I valued most and letting go of the rest, I found I didn’t need the guitar in my life, or the canning equipment, or the stamp collection, and I certainly didn’t need the silver bowl. They didn’t support my top values of traveling the world, spending more quality time with family and friends, improving my health, learning a language, and following my curiosity. So I let them go and made physical and mental space to focus on the mental conversations I did want to have. I say yes more often to the books I want to read, yes to visiting the Sahara and Angkor Wat, and yes to more quality time with my mom (my dad passed away last year).

By following my top values and letting go of the rest, I found I didn’t need 98% of my belongings (your amount will vary). I spend a lot less time researching, buying, organizing, storing, repairing, cleaning, and disposing of stuff I don’t need. This provides me an enormous amount of time to do what I value. I also have time to do nothing—to let my mind rest. Our brains need downtime to process all of the inputs that we feed it everyday. Having time to meditate, walk in nature, or just be is crucial to our mental well-being. Now I say yes to my health.

My house is much quieter now. My mind is much quieter now. I am more content.

Five Things Minimalism Is Not

Minimalism changed my life for the better. Minimalism at its core is focusing on what we truly value and eliminating the rest. There is not a definitive number of things a person should own to be a minimalist, and making minimalism a comparison game defeats one of its key purposes.

While the concept has grown in popularity over the last 15 years or more, I found it difficult to discern the core concepts from the many voices pushing different interpretations. I continually found the term misused, misunderstood, and co-opted to sell us more stuff or get more likes on social media posts.

The following are five habits that do not align with a minimalist life, even though they can be very good at posing as the real thing. They should not be confused with the life-changing power of minimalism.

Stopping just short of hoarding. If someone has a true hoarder in their lives, then a huge number of possessions can appear minimal in comparison. It’s probably obvious, but worth stating: simply not being a hoarder does not make me a minimalist. Getting rid of just enough stuff to avoid being a hoarder does not make me a minimalist. If we feel that we don’t have a problem to solve because hoarding is our comparison point, then we need a new reference point: a home free of everything that isn’t aligned with our values.

Being great at organizing a lot of stuff. Buying shelving, cabinets, bins, and other “organization” supplies so I can neatly store thousands of pounds of stuff in closets, attics, sheds, furniture, and basements does not make me a minimalist, even if my friends tell me my house looks tidy. I used to get that compliment often—I was a master at storage and organization. But that stuff, even if neatly arranged, was a burden on me. I had too much. Storing it neatly wasn’t the answer—getting rid of it was.

Embracing a “minimalist” designer’s style. Replacing my old stuff with new, sleek, white-palleted decor, or putting pasta, cereal, and dried beans in new matching glass containers that look Instagram-worthy does not make me a minimalist. Buying a designer paperweight from Marie Kando’s online store won’t make me a minimalist (but it will likely spark joy in her wallet). Being a minimalist is not about meticulously arranging my clothes in my closet from biggest to smallest, or by thickness of fabric (as Marie Kando suggests), or any other time-consuming design arrangement. If my effort to arrange my stuff is worthy of a social media post, then I am missing a key point of minimalism—simplicity.

Decluttering every year. If I need to declutter every year because there is a perpetual influx of new things in my life, then I am not a minimalist. I’m not talking about getting rid of my few worn out or broken items or some gifts from well-meaning relatives—I’m talking about remaining in a cycle of consuming, in which I regularly purge things just to create space for more purchases. For decades, every 6 to 12 months I found myself cleaning out the garage (or the shed, or my closet, or the basement) and driving a car load to donate at the local charity, and every 3-4 years I had a yard sale. Because I had not addressed my problem with collecting more stuff after each purge, I was doomed to repeat the collect-purge cycle. While it always felt great to get rid of that carload or sell that stuff in my yard sale, those purges did not make me a minimalist.

Confusing the allure of newness with my true values. New stuff has an allure (a spark of joy?) that is often confused with our true need to have something which honestly supports our top endeavors. My temporary desire, often fueled by societal pressures, to have the latest cooking gadget or electronics upgrade and the fleeting joy that purchase brings should not be confused with truly aligning my possessions with my values.

All of these habits have one thing in common—continued accumulation of more stuff, regardless of how much we dispose. By separating the minimalism wheat (intentionality and contentment) from the chaff (creating a certain “look” and endless organizing), I hope the benefits of real minimalism will be easier to find.

The Metamorphosis to Becoming a Minimalist

My wife and I sold or gave away 98 percent of our belongings. Our dream to be full-time nomadic travelers took flight in July 2023––a goal we never thought possible until we fully embraced minimalism.

In her popular book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing Marie Kondo is adamant that a successful minimalist life only can be achieved if a person does the decluttering all at once and not a little at a time. My experience was the opposite.

My metamorphosis from a self-described “collector of collections” to a minimalist took over three years to achieve through several stages. Small incremental reductions of what I owned, in turn, resulted in small but noticeable increases of freedom and control in my life. In fact, it changed who I was. While a caterpillar physically changes, I evolved internally, honing my values and perspectives.

Lucky Lager puzzle bottle caps from the late ’70s — one of my many collections

Like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly, I progressed through four stages to become a minimalist.

Each stage motivated me to make further (and often bigger) reductions in possessions and commitments resulting in increased white space and contentment in my life. A virtuous cycle.

Egg Stage: Start small, but discard enough to notice (and then notice!).

I started with the low-hanging fruit––I culled my closet, shoes, and some books. I disposed of enough to notice the freed up space. My drawers closed easier, my hangers had elbow room, and my shelves could breathe a little. It felt great and a little freeing to take a car load of boxes and bags to the nearby donation center.

Noticing how great this felt, I was motivated to do more. I went after our basement and attic storage areas––they were full of large plastic bins and boxes neatly stacked on shelves or in rows (reflecting years of storage management efforts). Again, I didn’t do it all at once, but I culled enough so that the empty boxes, bins, and shelf space after each round would continue to motivate me.

Decluttering enough to notice — I had spent decades buying bins and shelves to hold more stuff

In this “egg” stage, I passed over the vast majority of my possessions because they either had sentimental value (awards and keepsakes), emotional value (gifts and family heirlooms), functional value (tools, supplies, clothes), perceived rarity (collectibles), or perceived monetary value. At the end of this stage, my past self would have stopped––some culling and a car load or two of donations, creating some temporary space until the clutter returned. But this time I used the momentum from this stage as the start of true change.

Larvae Stage: Devour knowledge about minimalism and keep iterating.

Before I could tackle the “harder” possessions, I needed to learn more about the benefits of minimalism and gain tried-and-true techniques that worked for me. I read several books and blogs, listened to podcasts, and watched YouTube videos taking in many different perspectives on achieving a better life through minimalism.

There are many different approaches to minimalism. While I gleaned some valuable ideas from most of them, Fumio Sasaki’s book Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism resonated most with me. This book provides specific techniques for minimizing every type of possession. While I found he went a bit further than I did in my downsizing, I appreciated his thorough approach to the subject.

Finding the right voices that teach and inspire you is an important step in advancing your minimalism skills. I felt stronger knowing there is a supportive community and that I wasn’t alone in wanting the benefits of owning far fewer possessions than most citizens of developed countries.

As I learned new techniques and challenged my mindset, I iteratively returned to my closets, drawers, shelves, and storage with a fresh perspective and continued to make progress.

Pupa Stage: Ask yourself tough questions and let the answers change you.

As I advanced in my pursuit of a simpler life with fewer things, I needed to ask myself tough questions about who I was, what was important to me, how I let external pressures drive my internal decisions, and what were my expectations of the things I owned.

Asking myself Marie Kondo’s famous question about whether something sparked joy didn’t work for me. I found it too easy to confuse any “joy” I felt for a possession with the fleeting enjoyment of a shiny new object––that proverbial “new car smell.” Sometimes I needed to get rid of something even if I really liked it. On the other hand, important possessions I used everyday didn’t spark joy and they didn’t need to. They just needed to do their jobs.

Instead, I found that I needed to ask myself different questions depending on the item in my hands. The six tough questions below helped me identify what I wanted to change in myself in relation to what I owned.

Do my emotions connected to this item exist only because I possess it?
Do my family and friends really care if I let go of this thing they gave me?
If I let go of these excess clothes, do I care if people see me wear the same clothes on a frequent basis?
Is this possession an investment or an expense?
Can I borrow or rent this item instead of owning it?
How do I handle new items that come to my doorstep?

This photo is all I need to relive the joy of meeting
Warren Miller and watching his ski movies as he narrated them

These questions exposed my underlying beliefs, emotions, and societal pressures I attached (often subconsciously) to my possessions and impeded my ability to let them go. The answers to my 6 tough questions helped me change my relationship with the things I owned, freeing myself to make clear-minded decisions whether to keep or let go, and was the start of a newfound freedom.

I examine these six questions in more detail in this sister post [this article is also published in the minimalism and lifestyle blog No Sidebar].

I encourage someone on this journey to find the questions that work best for you. Asking yourself tough questions about your possessions to identify the underlying internal and external forces behind why you have what you have will help you hone your values and discard items that are not in alignment with those values.

Adult Stage: Ready to fly

I became a minimalist long before I pared down to the amount that I needed to meet my nomadic travel goal. My mindset and values completed their metamorphosis about 8 months before my belongings and commitments reflected that change.

Getting rid of a lifetime of possessions in a responsible way (selling, recycling, re-homing, donating, etc.) takes a lot of time.

The upper side of our major “everything-must-go” yard sale

For example, my wife and I culled, scanned, and then disposed of all physical photos except our small wedding album. It took days of hard work, but we are now enjoying the fruits of this labor by having immediate searchable access to over 7,000 photos. We enjoy and share these old photos far more than we ever did when they were stored in albums and boxes in the basement.

The lower side of our major “everything-must-go” yard sale

It was at this stage where I was able to tackle the hardest downsizing as I had the mental tools and fully understood my values in regards to my possessions. The emotional, sentimental, societal, and other belief barriers were no longer preventing me from taking action. Taking nicely laid out photos of keepsakes, awards, our kids school artwork, and other emotional and sentimental items (e.g., my bottle cap collection and autographed Warren Miller program) helped ensure I retained a record of the memories that these items represent and why I was keeping them. Looking at these and our other photos helps me reap a bigger memory dividend––the best return on investment we can achieve in life.

My wife and I completed our downsizing in July 2023, and now we travel the world full-time with a backpack and a carry-on each. My wife Launa shares poignant observations from our travels on her blog at Launa At Large where you can sign up for her thought-provoking electronic postcards. We love our freedom and the calming white space that minimalism has brought to our lives.

Ready for full-time travel with a carry-on and a backpack

The Pursuit of Contentment

“I want to be happy” was how I replied when asked as a youth what I wanted to be in life. Likely inspired by our country’s Declaration of Independence, I bought into the enticing desire of achieving full happiness. It doesn’t work that way.

In the pursuit of a life of bliss, I read several books and listened to numerous podcasts on happiness. I was struck by the happiness science finding that 50% of a person’s happiness is based on genes, 10% individual circumstance (environment mostly out of our control), which leaves just 40% under our control. More than half of a person’s happiness (or lack thereof) is out of one’s control.

This finding is eye-opening on why happiness is so elusive for so many people. If I was born with a 5% genetic predilection to happiness, and I somehow maxed out my environmental circumstances AND all happiness related measures under my control, I could achieve a maximum of a 55% state of happiness.

That is a failing grade, and I doubt I could consistently maintain a 100% achievement of the areas in my personal control, especially when my genetic disposition was fighting against me.

I’m More of a Piglet Than a Pooh Bear.

I have found that my normal state is not one of default happiness. Do I think I am an Eeyore with a 5% genetic happiness disposition? No. But I also don’t think I’m a Pooh Bear with a 45%+ genetic good humor and gentle kindness.

Unlike Pooh, happiness doesn’t come naturally to me. I am more like a Piglet. I naturally worry. I look for security and close friendships. Sure, I’ll be brave at times with my friends, but my default is not the blissful happiness of Pooh.

Happiness carries too much weight.

Happy moment sitting on a dune in the Sahara

I have learned that I don’t need to achieve the joy of happiness in all the day-to-day things I do or own. My wardrobe, meal, or wherever I’m staying the night isn’t responsible for my happiness, it just needs to fulfill its job. A car doesn’t need to spark joy, just get me where I need to go safely.

Happiness has a short shelf life and it is fundamentally based on comparison—with others and with personal expectations.

I think about the sheer joy my 14 year-old daughter expressed on her first business class flight experience. Through a series of crazy events, she unexpectedly was upgraded to business class flying home from Barcelona. She didn’t know until she was on the plane. She reveled over each item in the bag of sundries provided and in her ability to order all the pineapple juice she wanted. She was so grateful for the experience.

But conversely, I have seen people who travel business class frequently who complain about some aspect of the service and take the experience for granted. They have lost that first-time joy because business class has become routine.

The latter is an example of hedonic adaptation where humans will reset expectations as new experiences become expected. As we quickly adapt to life’s changes (e.g., new exciting car quickly becomes our regular car), we are continually chasing the next level item (oooh, look at that better and more expensive car!!!).

As a corollary, getting rid of unhappiness does not necessarily bring happiness. Happiness researchers share that negative emotions such as sadness and fear are necessary for survival, and that suffering is part of the human condition. Achieving 100% happiness would require humans to ignore these other important emotions and states of being. It is just not humanly possible to be fully happy all of the time, and yet we humans continue our endless pursuit of this holy grail.

The more I pursued happiness, the more elusive it became—always just around the corner, but never with me for long.

Instead, I pursue contentment.

Pursuing contentment addresses the hedonic adaptation treadmill problem that the pursuit of happiness tends to create. I have determined what is enough in my life—enough money, enough stuff, enough commitments.

Minimalism was a big help in this. In embracing minimalism, I lessened the emotions and value I placed on items I owned. The things I own, such as a car, watch, clothes, boat, home, etc., are no longer symbols of myself, any of my achievements, or my love of other people. It changed who I am. I don’t need to dress nice for other people. I don’t need new things to impress others.

I also fluctuate my life’s experiences to help me maintain an appreciation for the lucky life that I live. In the past year as a full-time nomad, I have slept on an inflatable camping mattress, two bunk beds, a rock-hard bed that made my hips ache, and several gigantic and comfortable king beds, and many beds in between (62 in all).

The variation keeps my perspective in check. If the bed does its job, then I am content with that. I don’t need an incredible bed every night to appreciate my daily life. The same applies to my food, clothes, transportation, and excursions.

Instead of asking myself “Am I happy?” I ask myself “Do I have what I need?” The bar for responses to the latter question is much lower, and I achieve contentment at a far higher rate than happiness. Attaining 100% contentment feels achievable in a way attaining 100% happiness never has.

Of course, I still feel many moments of happiness as I sit on a dune in the Sahara desert in Morocco or hike along a Roman road to the Bachkovo Monastery in Bulgaria, but these highs are no longer my measure for daily success. I instead measure my daily success by my level of contentment—having enough to meet my needs and pausing to notice that.

Recently, I had a nice take-out meal from Seven Eleven in Japan and I enjoyed it in a park with my wife. Nothing fancy. We had lots of ants join us. There were lots of weeds around. My seat on the concrete step was hard. The sky was beautiful. The mountains in the distance were nice. The buildings around us were interesting.

Was I happy? Maybe. Was I content? Fully.