About the Book

Minimalism: Essential Essays is an edited collection of 29 of our favorite essays about living a more meaningful life with less stuff. This 133-page collection also contains a special forward by Joshua and Ryan, as well as two bonus essays you can’t find anywhere else.

The book is organized into seven interconnected themes:

Living in the Moment

Emotional Health

Growth

Contribution

Passion and Mission

Taking Action

Change and Experimentation

The order of this collection is deliberate: it is meant to be read from beginning to end. We believe doing so will result in a better overall experience—a different experience from reading our essays all over the web—connecting various concepts that might otherwise seem unconnected.

Two Bonus Essays

As a special thank you to our readers, we also included two unpublished essays in this collection: Dealing with Overwhelm and Focus On What’s Important. These two essays can’t be found anywhere else on the web.

About The Minimalists

A couple years ago, as we approached age 30, we had achieved everything that was supposed to make us happy: we had great six-figure jobs, nice cars, big houses with more bedrooms than inhabitants, lots of toys, and lots of stuff in general.

And yet with all that stuff, we knew we weren’t satisfied with our lives. We knew we weren’t truly happy. We discovered that working 70 to 80 hours a week for a corporation and buying even more stuff didn’t fill the void. In fact, it only brought us more debt and anxiety and fear and loneliness and guilt and overwhelm and paranoia and crippling depression.

What’s worse, we found out we didn’t have control of our time and thus didn’t control our own lives. So we took back control using the principles of minimalism to focus on what’s important in life—to focus on living meaningful lives.

Our Vision is to see more people live meaningful, happy, passionate, free lives.

Our Mission is to contribute to other people in meaningful ways and share the freedom that minimalism provides.

http://www.theminimalists.com/

About Joshua Fields Millburn

Born in 1981, I came into this world at the tail end of Generation X. I recently turned 30. I used to lead a large group of people in the corporate world, but I left my six-figure job to pursue my passions. Now I’m a full-time writer. I’ve written two bestselling non-fiction books with Ryan Nicodemus: Minimalism: Essential Essays and Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life. My first book of fiction, Falling While Sitting Down: Stories, recently reached #1 on Amazon’s Bestselling Short Stories list. And my first novel, As a Decade Fades, will be published in 2012. I also write essays with Ryan Nicodemus about minimalism and living a meaningful life with less stuff on this site. I think own less than 288 things (but I don’t actually count my stuff). I live in Dayton, Ohio. You can laugh at more photos of me here and connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn. Read more about me on my personal fiction site.

Ryan’s Comments About Joshua

I’ve known Josh since the fifth grade. I’m younger by six months (note from Joshua: actually it’s less than four months, but who’s counting?), and as long as I’ve known him I’ve been the more attractive one (another note from Joshua: sadly, this is true). Even though I’m the one that’s always gotten the hotter girl (Joshua: this is not true though), we’ve managed to stay friends. I’m happy that Josh is my friend. Together, we have an ability to make anything happen when we put our minds to it. We bring out each other’s strengths, and we keep each other motivated. My favorite memory of Josh is the first time I saw him eat an entire 10 pack of White Castles at age 10 (Joshua: I don’t remember this, but I’ll take your word for it. I was a fat kid, after all). Oh, and he had a mullet until he was 12 years old (Joshua: unfortunately I can’t deny this fact, mainly because there are pictures to prove it).

About Ryan Nicodemus

Hi, my name is Ryan and I like sandwiches (among other things). I was born in 1981 in Knoxville, Tennessee. My family moved around a lot when I was young, but we eventually ended up in Ohio (by way of upstate New York) when I was eight. Three states in eight years. I could go on, but you probably don’t care. I have a ton of hobbies, like volleyball, snowboarding, wake boarding, etc. Professionally, I had it made in the corporate world. I was living “the corporate dream” until I was laid off unexpectedly. But that was one of the best things that ever happened to me. Now I’m living a meaningful life with less stuff and pursuing my passions. I’ve written two non-fiction books with Joshua Fields Millburn: Minimalism: Essential Essays and Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life. If you like interesting/funny updates, follow me on Twitter and Google+.

Joshua’s Comments About Ryan

I’m fairly certain Ryan will not approve of any of the follow “facts” about his life. Ryan is the same age as me, although he was born a few months after I was (he looks much older than me though). We have nearly identical thought processes, but we are almost completely different people: I’m a bit OCD, Ryan is a bit ADD; I’m an introvert who loves time alone, Ryan is an extrovert who loves to be around people; I’m 6’2″, and Ryan is … well, he’s less than six-feet tall. We have a lot of similarities though: we both had difficult childhoods, we both know how to effectively lead people and successfully run a business, we are both tremendously passionate people. This will sound sentimental, but Ryan is the best person I know. He is habitually honest, caring, loving, and passionate. Oh, and he likes turtles and Wendy’s coffee and watching the evening news. I’m extremely grateful we’re friends.