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[Applause]
okay so this is my top so I opened a
house that just a little bit like these
two images
it was very cluttered very chaotic and I
had a great life I didn’t have to do any
chores my parents basically did
everything and yeah I still look like
this okay I was happy flash-forward to
today and middle ism is a huge global
trend there’s books and media and
documentaries all about this topic and
if you don’t know minimalism is
basically defined as trying to live with
as few objects as you possibly can and
it looks pretty amazing so I think
something that I usually drawn me into
the middle so much was how completely
different it was from the way I lived my
entire life so I sold I started to
consume this media all the time I walked
the documentaries and books and watched
all the YouTube videos and if you want
to know the kind of mindset shift that
happened when I started consuming all
this media take a look at the backpack I
defeat and consider every object every
live assignment every supply that’s in
your backpack and consider the necessity
of these things how much do you need all
of these things probably not that much
according to the middle list
they say you should pare down as much as
you possibly can because you will feel
euphoria
apparently there’s a whole host of
benefits that come
like increased happiness increased
health increased relationships given
that’s what they said and so it became
as if I had this kind of Jimmy cricket
inside my head all the time whenever I
was at home I couldn’t see stuff the
same way that I always had I was looking
around and thinking what can I get rid
of next I’d gotta have less I want to be
happy one of the people that inspired me
Azmaria Conda she sold millions of books
called the life-changing magic of
tidying up and she’s gone to another one
and someone she told me it was the
question of what she wanna own is
actually the question of how you want to
live your life and put in these terms I
started to think of my stuff as a
reflection of myself if I had too much
stuff in my room was messy
it meant I had a messy life and then I
was a mess essentially and so very
quickly it became me versus my stuff
every weekend I would drive down to
Goodwill to see how much stuff I could
get rid of in fact that’s really the
only reason I used my driver’s license
this last year it’s gonna get well um an
already after my roommate was more or
less clean I started to look out at the
rest of my TV and the rest of my house
and I saw that was still a mess I was
still nice so I started to branch out I
started to get rid of my family’s things
things they didn’t even know about I
wanted to reach the minimalist goal and
so as you can imagine fights and sued
and media versus my stuff became leave
this is my family they didn’t understand
why I wanted minimalism they didn’t
understand what I was doing
they started to realize that I was
getting rid of the things they were so
mad they were so mad at me even things
like plastic cups or plastic containers
they didn’t understand why I would want
to get rid of them they wanted to keep
everything in its place
how’d it always been but the thing was
even though I knew this was wrong even
though I knew I was thinking them so
upset I couldn’t change I couldn’t look
at things the same way as I had before
the minimalist had changed my mind
essentially I had changed my mind and I
think I want to continue going to
Goodwill every weekend and trying to get
rid of everything if it hadn’t been for
Bruce Martha go so if you don’t know who
three smarts go and suck okay no one
does I found with his comment on YouTube
video by the self research team that CDL
F just a team of anthropologist at the
University of California Los Angeles and
they did a study in which they went into
25 middle-class American family homes
and actually like video recording took
photos of and analyzed every single
object in those homes but what they
found was these middle-class American
family homes had only three thousand
objects many of them and they’re very
reminiscent of my own home I can relate
but the thing was in the comment section
there was a lot of division so there was
the camp of people who were saying this
is a use after watching minimalist
videos they couldn’t stand watching
these they said this is a few Slyke I
said why would you raise your kids in
this environment it’s disgusting and
then on the other hand you have a camp
of people in the same comment section or
same house
sympathy for these people this is the
middle class they work more hours than
many of us and what’s wrong with coming
home at the end of the day and watching
TV with a TV dinner there’s nothing
wrong with that and then there was a
third monitor and that was Bruce MARSOC
oh and it won’t read to his entire
comment but he said something along the
lines of the ball oh my god I feel so
guilty I have three bags of frozen
meatballs in the freezer and I have all
these other things and I am living like
a hoarder and I feel so bad and it
reminded me of myself because I became
obsessed with stuff under the scrutiny
of the minimalist that I compared myself
to I was a mess and all I care about was
stuff and I realized that this
confessional having to worry about what
other people think that is what is
drawing us away from our happiness our
best selves it’s not stuff or no stuff
it’s how we look at stuff it’s how we
look at ourselves it’s not making us
happy to think this way so I started to
think back to a time when I was truly
happy and that was when I was at home
and let me let me explain are used to
define a home by my experiences I define
home when I was camping when I was on
trips when I was at the zoo when I’m
with my family that was when I felt like
I was at home thinking back to when I
was a child I don’t think of my house
and what that looked like
I think of who I was with how I felt the
things I saw and it was really a gradual
progression of thinking that helped me
get to a point of gratitude and
acceptance for what I had I had to
really reflect back on those men
in order to reach this point so when I
take somethings in graduation I don’t
just mean like sounds I grab to it but I
mean acceptance for having the family
that likes stuff acceptance for my dad’s
record collection which kind of gives me
off because he has like three hundred
records and that’s what it looks s it
but at the same time they make him so
happy
and I’ll never understand that happiness
it’s gratitude it for having a family
for having a home that I can live in for
the homies heat and water and a bathroom
like that’s insane and I know I’m going
to say that it’s easier to feel grateful
if you have fewer objects sure but why
don’t we just start being grateful for
what we have today thanks so much
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