Tied Up in Knots? The Minimalist’s Guide to Inner Peace

‘Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.’ ~Victor Frankl

Are you ready to be a warrior for inner peace? Doing less and organizing more simplifies for sure. But until you deal with the ways you get knotted up inside, your life will be complicated, and the glory of inner peace will elude you.

Inner peace is revealed when the inner war ends. We stop looking outside ourselves for solutions to our problems and, instead, turn our attention inward to make peace with our own experience. This simple movement of attention is revolutionary. It heals, calms, and clarifies like nothing else.

We are experts at denying our experience. Take any habit that doesn’t serve you – compulsively shopping or staying busy, self-judgment, jealousy. If you trace it back to its root, you will find an expectation or feeling you have been avoiding.

These hidden aspects of ourselves thrive when we ignore them, leaving fear, desire, and lack to unconsciously drive our behavior. Once they are illuminated by becoming aware, we see how they operate, and we can make a different choice. No more conflict. No more confusion. Finally, peace.

Unearthing our inner experiences is like treasure hunting. Each one is a breadcrumb leading us out of the wilderness of discontent and into the light of a simple, conscious, lovely way of being. Suffering ends and freedom begins, leaving us available to happiness, wonder, enjoyment, and creativity.

Exploring your triggers takes courage and openness. Prepare yourself for the journey by being willing:

To be honestTo feel pain but not wallow in itTo let go of the old and changeTo contemplate a new kind of inner life not beset by distress and disturbanceTo be happy and peaceful

Now, begin to explore. Showing up as a loving presence to yourself is one of the most sane and compassionate things you could ever do.

When you are triggered, rather than playing it out in the usual way, stop and breathe.Simply notice the thought patterns, feelings, and bodily sensations that are present. Don’t freak out – just be curious. What are you thinking? What is the energy behind the thoughts? What feelings and physical sensations are present? These questions allow you to become familiar with how your habits work so they no longer control you.Find the most loving place inside you – the soft spot that melts when you encounter puppies, babies, or those most dear to you. Pour this love into the tension and painful feelings. This is the healing balm that untangles the knot.Rinse and repeat every time you are struggling.Move forward in a way that supports your clarity, happiness, and well being.

Say that you have been carrying around a grudge for a decade or two. To keep this grudge alive, you must be telling yourself a story about what should and shouldn’t have happened. You feel churned up inside, and your reaction is activated every time you face a person or situation that triggers the memories. This is no way to live.

Your thoughts about what happened are keeping you stuck. Release yourself by letting go of the story and feeling right into the pain. Break it down into its elements – thoughts and physical sensations. This is the experience that’s been plaguing you all along. Love those tender feelings, then go forth with fresh eyes.

This process doesn’t condone what happened, and it has nothing to do with the other person. It’s a choice you make for your peace and happiness.

How many of us blame the other person for struggles in our relationships? We get caught in the trap of “if only” – if only the other would change, then I will feel more peaceful. This mindset will never solve the problem because you are making your peace dependent on something you can’t control – what other people say and do.

If your relationships bring you stress, make peace with your own reactions. Turn your attention inward to lovingly meet the frustration, disappointment, or fear that is triggered in you. Even though you may not like what you realize, when you accept things as they are, you are at peace. And seeing your role in the problem unlocks the possibility of experimenting with new and compassionate solutions.

Maybe you engage in a compulsive pattern that involves your actions, thoughts, or feelings. All challenging habits mask an unexplored emotion, usually fear or sadness.

Do you want to bring ease to your inner world? Stop, breathe, and move your kind attention into the feeling you’ve been avoiding. Love it every time it arises. Then follow Leo’s advice on changing habits, and you are well on your way to freeing yourself.

Can you see the value of becoming aware? Any inner knot can be untangled when you pay attention to it. Start with whatever is troubling you right now, and know that every moment of awareness simplifies.

The process of becoming aware is not a panacea that instantly cures all your ills. But you will notice some changes – space, ease, and, a depth of peace you never knew was possible.

Gail Brenner, Ph.D. is a psychologist who blogs at A Flourishing Life. Stay in touch by subscribing to her feed.
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Den tweet.

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The Minimalist’s Guide to Cultivating Passion

The joy that results in doing something you love.

“I did stand-up comedy for eighteen years,”  Steve Martin recalls  in his 2007 memoir, Born Standing Up. “Ten of those years were spent learning, four years were spent refining, and four were spent in wild success.” If you do the math, this sums to fourteen years of hard work before Martin saw returns on his investment.

Fourteen years.

That’s a long time to remain focused on a goal without reward, especially when the path is ambiguous (“The course was more plodding than heroic,” Martin recalls).  But as he makes clear in his book, Martin found a Zen peace in the simplicity of his pursuit. He describes with relish, for example, the importance of “diligence” in becoming a star — a term he redefines to mean the ability to not work on unrelated projects — and he labels “loss of focus” as an “indulgence” that success cannot afford.

Martin’s story should resonate with those of us interested in the minimalist lifestyle preached here at Zen Habits. He injected minimalism into his life by orienting his world around a single passionate pursuit: innovating stand-up comedy. For Martin, there was never any doubt what his Most Important Task would involve each morning, and jettisoning unrelated commitments and distractions came naturally. As he discovered, when you know what your life is about it’s easy to sidestep all that threatens to clutter it.

In other words: passion breeds simplicity.

Even if we agree on their value,  however, how do we find these simplicity-generating passionate pursuits in our own lives? This is the thorny question I address in this post.

Faced with the task of identifying their “passion,” most people have one of two reactions:

The first is a frantic search of their lives with the aim of uncovering some magical pursuit that unmistakably sings to their soul. As a writer of student advice, for example, I frequently receive e-mails from young people that begin: “I’m trying to decide what my passion should be…”  (If only it were that easy.)

The second reaction is paralysis: faced with the life-changing importance of this discovery, many people freeze — hoping for a sign from above that will make things clear. (Spoiler: This can be a long wait.)

Neither of these approaches succeed, as passion is not something that can be forcefully identified, and though it sometimes bubbles up serendipitously, this is not something you can count on happening any time soon.  So what’s a passion-seeking minimalist to do?

I found an answer in an unlikely place…

In the winter of 2009, I began researching a book on college admissions. Inspired by the type philosophy taught here at Zen Habits, I sought students who followed a Zen path through the college process — getting into good schools while still living uncluttered and authentic high school lives. It soon became clear that the students who pulled off this feat shared a common trait: like Steve Martin, they had organized their life around a passionate deep interest. (This interest, in turn, made them irresistible to admissions officers weary of reading the files of chronically over-scheduled and stress-addled applicants.)

To make my book useful, I needed to discover how such passionate interests are formed. After months of research, I arrived, finally, at Penn State University, where a professor named Linda Caldwell had made a career out of studying interest formation.

Excited by her results, and wondering how to translate them into everyday life, I gave her a call:

“You need to be exposed to many things,” she told me. “You should expose yourself even though you might not know if you’ll be interested.”

When you find something that catches your attention: follow-up; see if it sticks.

In other words, discovering passion requires a dedication to unstructured exploration. You have to leave large swathes of free time in your schedule (a technique I call underscheduling), and fill this time with the exploration of things that might be interesting. Of equal importance, when something catches your attention you must leverage your free time to aggressively follow up.

As Caldwell’s research reveals, true passion can’t be forced. You can participate in personality tests and self-reflection exercises until you drop from exhaustion, but it’s unstructured exploration coupled with aggressive follow-ups that most consistently leads people to a life-consuming interest.

Here are some examples of this idea in action:

In a gap year following high school, Ben Casnocha booked an open-ended trip around the world. He left his schedule undefined, traveling with only the general goal of journaling and meeting interesting people. During this process he noticed a recurring interest in writing. Because his time was unstructured, he was able to aggressively follow-up on the interest by calling up his contacts in the publishing industry. His efforts led him to a book deal and he went on to finish the manuscript in the exotic international destinations left in his trip. He continues to write professionally today both on his blog and in magazines; he’s also a frequent commentator on NPR.In 2003, Dee Williams, a toxic waste inspector, was living in a spacious bungalow in Portland, Oregon. (Depending on the source, it was somewhere between 1500 to 2000 square feet of luxurious living.) Her time was consumed by the standard traps of middle class life: an extensive remodel on her home, car problems, the struggle to pay bills, and so on. A committed environmentalist, she realized she was tired of walking the walk and wanted to talk the talk (“I was a slackavist,” she recalls), so she simplified her life, selling her house and moving into an 84 square feet “tiny house” made out of found materials and parked in the corner of a friend’s yard. This move to simplicity opened time in her schedule for exploration. She soon stumbled into a community of people who were using tiny houses as a way of promoting sustainable living. She left her job as a waste inspector and started Boxcar Woodcrafts, a small woodworking company, and now dedicates her newly copious free time to teaching classroom programs on green living and sustainability.As a high school student, Maneesh Sethi was adamant about leaving free time in his schedule. (During his senior year, for example, he arranged a schedule that allowed him to return home after lunch each day.) He filled this free time with exploration: among other pursuits, he became Internet famous for demonstrating how to transform a tube sock into an iPod case. A computer enthusiast, Maneesh found himself one weekend afternoon at a trade conference where he met an editor of programming books. This led him to discover that the editor was considering a book on computer game programming for teenagers. Leveraging the free time in his schedule, Maneesh aggressively followed-up on the opportunity, sending over a collection of sample chapters, and finally convincing the publisher that a he, as a teenager, was well-suited to write their book for teenagers. This led, among other things, to a follow-up book, and a recurring segment on a TechTV show. Maneesh now writes full time about living an unconventional lifestyle.

This advice can be hard to follow at first. When we think about passion we think about action: we want to start doing big things right now! But the reality of passion is more subtle. You have to do less to get more in your life. It’s a virtuous catch-22: by embracing a minimalist lifestyle now, you are more likely to develop the passionate interest that will support the lifestyle in the long run.

Put another way: take a step back; relax; then open your eyes to patiently take in all that’s out there.

Read more from Cal at his blog, Study Hacks, or subscribe to his feed.

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A Minimalist’s Guide to eBay: The Least You Need to Know to Get Started

‘There must be more to life than having everything.’ ~Maurice Sendak

There are dozens upon dozens of guides to eBay on the internet. There a thousands of tips and tricks scattered across hundreds of websites. I know, because I’ve read 90% of them over the last few years.

You see, back in 2008, my wife and I hatched a crazy plan. We were burnt out and beaten from our recent addiction to consumerism and the compounding stress of our consumer debt. We were tired of the constant pressure to work jobs we weren’t passionate about to pay for stuff that didn’t bring us lasting value or joy.

So we sold it. We sold everything. If it didn’t get sold, it was donated or thrown out. Over the course of the next year, we purged all of our possessions, paid off $18,000 in debt, and jumped on a plane for Australia with our 1-year-old daughter. We each took one backpack and whatever we could fit inside of it.

In the massive purge of our excess stuff, eBay was invaluable. I venture we sold at least 70% of all our possessions on the website. At first, we flew by the seat of our pants, but over time we taught ourselves the ins and outs of the eBay process. We slowly figured out how to maximize the money we received, while minimizing the amount of time we spent doing it.

We aren’t professional eBay sellers, but Courtney and I learned a lot through our year of trial and error … through our research and reading. In the spirit our adopted minimalist lifestyle, I want to share what we believe is the least you need to know to get started listing your excess stuff on eBay.

At the start, no step is more important than a clear mindset. When I approach any excess clutter, I do it with the following prioritizes:

Purge it from my life. First and foremost, I want it gone. It’s important to remove the emotional attachment, as well as the inflated value you have linked to the item. If I receive an above average price for it, great. This happens most of the time. If not, I lose no sleep. It’s still gone.Sell it. Donate it. Recycle it. Once I decide to purge something from my life, I first will try to extract value out of it.  If I can’t sell it, I immediately attempt to donate it.  If neither is possible, I’ll try to recycle or re-purpose as much as possible.Minimize time and stress invested. Obviously, I’m not looking to invest a large block of time or stress into the selling process. I want to get a fair price, but I have no interest in maximizing profit if it requires high levels of time or energy.

eBay has an enormous amount of volume each and every day. Luckily, we can leverage this to get an estimate of how much our item is likely to fetch in an auction.

In order to save time, you’ll want to batch your research together. As you go through your clutter, place any potential items in a pile, box, or designated area. Once they are separated, sit down and do all your research during the same session, one item at a time.

Here’s the least you need to keep in mind when researching:

Start specific. When using eBay’s search bar, start specific. Try to find as close as match as possible to the item you want to sell. If your search returns less than 10 results, you can broaden or drop your keywords to expand the search.Search completed listings first. After running a search, make sure you check “completed listings” in the left sidebar. Alternatively, this is available under advanced search. Look first for items that have successfully sold through a basic auction format.Estimated price. If you can find between 5-10 sold items that are exact matches or comparable to your own item, quickly estimate a price based on the final bids on those auctions. Ensure that the price is high enough to warrant the time you’ll invest listing the item. For example, you may set a benchmark of $10 or $20. If it’s currently averaging higher, place it in a pile to list. If not, place it in a pile to donate or sell locally.Study great examples. If you decide to list an item, open up the 2-3 similar listings that have received the highest winning bids. Study their titles, pictures, and descriptions. Take note of why they received top dollar. Never copy or steal. Instead, study the examples to improve your own listings … in your own words.

Pictures sell. Once you are done researching the items, batch your picture taking, too.

One at a time, go through the pile of items you will be listing a take photos. Take clear photos on plain, neutral backgrounds. Remove any other clutter and have your item fill the majority of the frame. When in doubt, take extra pictures from different angles. You can quickly sort out the best ones later.

Once you are finished, upload the pictures to your computer. Sort them into folders by the listing they feature.

Upload the highest-quality, front view image as the primary image on your listing. For extra images, you have two options. You can upload these to Flickr, and insert the HTML in the description of your listing for free (preferred). Alternatively, you can pay a small fee to upload more photos directly into eBay. This is one of the rare times when the upgrade is usually worth the cost.

The title of your listing is extremely important. Always write your titles for search engines, first. Humans, second. Increasing the number of eBay searches you appear in is the number one factor in how much money you’ll ultimately receive. Use keywords that you think a buyer will use when searching for your item.

Use all the characters that you can (eBay allows 55 characters in titles). Be specific and include as many details, such as Brand, Model, Make, Artists, and Year.

Avoid buying subtitles. Information in subtitles do not appear in searches by default. They are rarely worth the extra cost.

Once a bidder finds your item and clicks your title, the description you provide will determine whether they stick around or move on. Great descriptions are more of an art than a science, but here is the formula I follow:

Restate the exact item. Expand on the title and/or subtitle and restate the exact item that is being sold at the very top of the description. Include thorough detail on the make, model, condition, serial number, age, and similar details.Personality and history. Take time to show your personality. Make yourself seem approachable and real. Often you can do this by including details such as how you got the item, some background into its history, or why you are selling. This is one of the most overlooked and valuable parts of making a bidder comfortable with your listing.Benefits. Directly state how the item has benefited your life and/or how it will benefit the buyer.List everything included. Be specific and thorough. List every accessory, add-on, manual, and battery (or lack thereof).Fully disclose any flaws. Not only is this ethical, it’ll also save you countless time and energy on returns and unsatisfied buyers. State the flaws bluntly and include pictures if needed.Additional images. If you know how to embed additional images via HTML, you can include as many as you’d like for free. I normally embed these back-to-back at this point in the description.Shipping, payment, and return details. Reiterate your shipping and payment details in the description. To save energy and headaches, I normally only ship to North America, only accept PayPal to process payments, and do not accept returns. I lose potential exposure to some buyers, but eliminated the far majority of problems and stress with these tactics. I ship 95% of items through the USPS Priority Mail. Exceptions are media items, which ship Media Mail, and packages under 13 ounces, which ship First Class Mail.

For the far majority of items, a standard auction format will yield the best results.

No reserve price. This costs extra, limits potential bidders, and should only be employed on unique or rare items with no comparables or little market.

Set your starting price at $0.99. The most important bid is the first one. The lower you set the starting price, the more watchers and bidders you will attract early on. The higher the number of bids you’ve received, the more eBay’s search engine will reward your listing in search results. As a bonus, your first 100 listings per month are free at this starting price.

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Remember, this is the least you need to know to get started. There’s much more depth to the process, but the tips and strategy outlined above will enable you to sell the majority of items for above average prices in a fraction of the time.

Baker writes about clutter, money, travel, and passion over at Man Vs. Debt. His brand new guide, Sell Your Crap, helps people attack and sell their clutter. It includes a step-by-step eBay module and video interview with Leo Babauta.

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