Millburn: Everything that Remains

Mini Book Review #21: Everything that Remains: A Memoir by the Minimalists, by Joshua Fields Millburn.

Joshua Fields Millburn’s memoir is spare, elegant prose on living with less and enjoying life more. From a Christian’s perspective, he seems to lack deeper purpose in his life. However, he is able to disconnect from our society’s rat race of materialism. I enjoyed reading and learning from this short, reflective memoir. We cannot find meaning in things, and once we divest ourselves of things, what do we have left? Millburn finds out in his experiment with minimalism that relationships with people are among the “everything that remains.”

Favorite Quotes from Everything That Remains:

“For decades now, I have played the role of the moth, lured by the flame of consumerism, pop culture’s beautiful conflagration, a firestorm of lust and greed and wanting, a haunting desire to consume that which cannot be consumed, to be fulfilled by that which can never be fulfilling. A vacant proposition, leaving me empty inside, which further fuels my desire to consume….Realizing this, becoming aware of the danger, is difficult to do. But this is how we wake up.”

Joshua Fields Millburn, p. 72 of Everything That Remains.

On going without a phone for 60 days: “Must one unplug from reality to properly observe reality?” (P. 142)

“I get more done by focusing on only the important stuff first, working through the tasks that truly matter, embracing Real Priorities instead of engaging in fluid inactivity. 

Usually that means doing things that‘re more difficult than I’d like. For me, writing is difficult, exercise is hard, even reading is not passive. Virtually everything that’s meaningful—everything worth doing – requires a good amount of effort. But of course that’s where all the reward is. Likewise, the passive tasks – Facebook, email, television, etc.— are easy. And they are fine in small doses…But there’s no grand reward for passivity, just pain and regret and an emptiness that’s hard to articulate.”

Joshua Fields Millburn, p. 151 of Everything That Remains.