NO.

008 — MAR 2019

SIMPLIFY MAGAZINE
· A QUART E RLY, D IGI TAL PUBL IC AT IO N FO R FAMIL IE S ·

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Issue 008 — Gratitude, Generosity, Contentment

1. An Introduction: The Gratitude, Generosity, Contentment Issue

by The Founders of Simplify Magazine

2. A Better Path to Contentment

by Joshua Becker

3. How to Find Gratitude When Everything Goes Wrong

by Marc Chernoff

4. A Case for Enjoying Little Moments, Even When Life Sucks

by Nataly Kogan

5. The Beauty of Being Out of Control

by Jeremiah Parks

6. Teaching Kids How to Live a Fulfilled Life

by Kristen Welch

7. Freely Give: The Simplicity of Generosity

by Jeff Shinabarger

8. How Owning Less Led Me to a Happier Life

by Tammy Strobel

9. #Gratitude
by Patrick Rhone

10. The Pecan Tree

by Brian Gardner

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An Introduction: Gratitude,
Generosity, Contentment
by The Founders of Simplify Magazine

Contentment is the lifeblood of happiness. Without it, the journey

toward joy (and we might add purpose) is inevitably short-lived.

When contentment is not present, discontent will always rear its ugly
head to distract from simplicity, focus, and deep meaning. From our
experience, contentment must be chosen or else discontentment
begins to take over.

Not only does contentment provide the opportunity for joy, meaning,
and purpose, but it also reduces your stress level, improves your
outlook, relaxes your body, and makes your life enjoyable.

There is an unmistakable freedom that accompanies contentment—a

freedom to be who you are, enjoy who you are, and live the life you
were destined to live.

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That is why this issue of Simplify Magazine is so important. And while

contentment is an important topic in and of itself, it didn’t seem to
right to talk about contentment without including the equally
essential (and related) topics of gratitude and generosity.

In this issue of Simplify Magazine, you will find contributions from

best-selling authors, CEOs, philosophers, nonprofit founders, and
some of the men and women who have been personally influential in
our pursuit of contentment. Each will bring a unique perspective to
this important conversation.

We are confident you are going to enjoy and be challenged by each

and every article in this issue of Simplify Magazine. Soak it up.

Brian Gardner & Joshua Becker

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A Better Path to Contentment

by Joshua Becker

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Contentment. People look for it in any number of places.

Some look for contentment in a high-paying job, yet show their

discontent the first time they are passed over for a raise. Some look
for it in a large home, yet show their discontent by requiring
countless improvements. Many have sought contentment in a
department store, believing that one more item will finally match
their desire, but they are always disappointed, despite the promises
made in ads.

In our consumeristic culture, where discontent is promoted and

material gratification is encouraged, learning to be content can be
difficult. It is a personal journey we all must travel—and nobody’s
journey looks exactly the same as another’s. There is no one-size-fits-
all, seven-step program to fully attain contentment in your life. I’m
not here to offer one.

I do, however, want to raise a question that I think can be helpful to

all of us in our pursuit.

What if we have been looking for contentment in all the wrong

places? What if contentment is actually found in the exact opposite
of the place where we have been told to look? That is, what if

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contentment is not found in accumulating more for ourselves but in

giving more to others?

Hear me out on this. It may be a life-changing realization.

Benefits of Generosity

We can easily understand how contentment leads to generosity—the

less we need, the more we can give away. But could it be that the
inverse is also true? That the more we give, the less we need? That
generosity also leads to contentment?

Consider for just a moment how generosity leads to contentment:

• Generous people value what they own.

People who give away some possessions hold their remaining

possessions in higher esteem. People who volunteer some of their
time make better use of their time remaining. And people who
donate money are less wasteful with the money left over.

• Generous people live happier, more fulfilled lives.

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Studies have shown that generous people are happier, healthier,

and more satisfied with life. [1] And once they find this satisfaction
through generosity, they are less inclined to search for it elsewhere.

• Generous people find meaning outside their possessions.

It is the accepted way to wrap up self-worth in net worth, as if a

person’s true value could ever be tallied on a balance sheet. Generous
people, on the other hand, find their value in helping others
and quickly realize that their bank account balance says nothing
about their true value.

• Generous people have more fulfilling relationships.

People always prefer the company of a generous giver to the company

of a selfish hoarder. People are naturally attracted toward others who
have an open heart to share. And a good friend is the best gift you
could ever give yourself.

In addition to benefits for the giver, generosity also benefits the

receiver. Giving improves lives. It fights to overturn injustice. It solves
problems. It offers an example to the world of a better way to live.
And it spurs others to do the same.

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But there is another benefit of generosity that should not be

overlooked. Maybe the greatest benefit of generosity is the realization
that we already have enough.

Enough Is Enough

Our society is held hostage by the pursuit of more. No matter how

much we have, we always seem to need more—more stuff and more
money.

We choose our careers for the sake of securing more. We spend the
best hours of our day trying to obtain more. We get jealous when
“less deserving” people seem to have more. And we constantly worry
about having enough.

But this desire for more is having damaging effects on our

society. Take money for example.

A U.S. poll reported that 85% of people feel stressed about money. [2]
There are some who experience this anxiety because of legitimate
financial need, but for most of us, this stress is misplaced. In a world
where 71% of the population lives off $10 or less a day, [3] most of our

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financial-related stress occurs because of artificially manufactured

need.

As Bob Lotich wrote in Simple Money Magazine, “If your household

annual income is over $35,000, then you are in the top 1% of the
richest in the world. Shouldn’t we be happy with what we have?” [4]

Generosity changes our perspective and helps to remove this pursuit.

It reveals to us how blessed we already are. It reminds us we already
own more than we need. It shows us how much we have to give and
how much good we can accomplish. It helps us see the needs of those
we live alongside. And it offers a better alternative for our money
than spending it on ourselves.

Generosity counters materialism and consumerism in our lives. It

wars against greed and selfish pursuits. It argues against the need for
more.

Giving aligns our life with higher purposes and offers a better way to
live. It reminds us we already have enough. And it provides a fertile
soil in our heart for contentment to grow.

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This contentment leads to even more generosity, which leads to even

greater contentment, which leads to… See where I’m going with this?

Do you desire more contentment in your life? If so, try something

new. Give something away. And open up the door for contentment
and generosity to collide.

The Giving Path

If the thought of finding margin to become generous seems

unreachable to you, here are a few simple ways to get started:

• Start really small.

If you’ve never given away money, start by giving away $1. If you are
embarrassed to give just $1, don’t be. You’ve got nothing to worry
about: there are plenty of charities online that allow you to give with
your credit card and you’ll never cross paths with the people who
record your $1 donation.

Of course, the point of this exercise is not to report a $1 tax

deduction on your year-end tax return. The point is to get started and
to discover that you do have margin to give.

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If you’ll feel more comfortable giving $5, $10, or $20, start there.

• Give first.

Often we wait to see how much we have left over before we

determine how much we can give away. The problem is that most of
the time, after we start spending, there is nothing left over. The habit
of spending is too deeply ingrained in us.

To counteract that cycle, give first. When you receive your next
paycheck, make your first expense an act of giving. Write a check for
$10 (or $1) to your local homeless shelter or other good cause. You
may be surprised how you won’t even miss it.

• Try diverting one specific expense.

For a set period of time (try 29 days), divert one specific expense to a
charity of your choosing. You may choose to bring a lunch to work,
ride your bike to work once a week, or give up Starbucks on Mondays.
Calculate the money you’ll save and then redirect it to a specific
charity or cause.

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Whatever you choose, I recommend picking something that would

be fun to give up—something distinctive that you’ll remember. And
setting a specific period of time for the experiment should make it
completely achievable.

• Fund a cause based on your passions.

What are you most passionate about? Is it the environment, poverty,

or religion? Maybe it’s world peace, child nutrition, or animal rights?
What about education, civil rights, or clean water? Identify what
passions already move you, find a committed organization around
that cause, and then joyfully help them in their work.

• Find a person you believe in.

If you find that you are more easily motivated and shaped by the
people in your life rather than organizations or causes, use that
tendency as motivation instead.

Take careful notice of the people in your life whom you most admire.
What organizations or causes do they hold most dear? Who do they
support? What makes them passionate about supporting it? And
how can you get involved alongside them?

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• Spend time with people in need.

One effective antidote for non-generosity is to make space in your life

for those who need your help. After all, it is a small step to go from
knowing somebody in need to helping somebody in need.

One of the easiest ways to accomplish this is to volunteer to serve

one meal at your local homeless shelter. Most homeless shelters
readily accept volunteers and have systems in place to get you
started. Rubbing shoulders with the poor just may change your
impression of them forever.

• Spend time with a generous person.

One of the most memorable conversations I’ve ever had about

generosity occurred when I found the courage to start asking specific
questions of the right person. I remember starting with “Have you
always been generous?” I immediately followed with more: “When
did you become so generous? How did it start? How do you decide
where your money goes? What advice would you give someone who
wants to get started?” It was life-changing. And the other guy paid for
the meal—go figure.

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As you give more things away—your money, your time, your energy—
your life will feel lighter. Your heart will feel warmer. The world will be
better.

And you’ll find contentment sooner than you think.

...

Joshua Becker is the founder and editor of Becoming Minimalist, a

website that inspires 1 million readers each month to own less and
live more. He is also the best-selling author of The More of Less. His
new book, The Minimalist Home, was released on December 18.

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How to Find Gratitude When

Everything Goes Wrong
by Marc Chernoff

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My wife, Angel, and I recently interviewed a minimum-wage motel

housekeeper in Miami for a project we’re working on to support our
book, Getting Back to Happy. “Do you like your job?” we asked her.

To our surprise, she smiled from ear to ear and was breathless for a
couple moments. She finally collected herself and said, “I can’t believe
how much I love my job! I get to make dozens of our guests happy
every day and feed my two beautiful children at the same time.”

Thirty minutes later, at that same motel, we met a family of six in the
lobby. They were just hanging out, sharing stories, laughing, and
taking turns reading excerpts from a book. Their joyous presence
caught our attention, so we asked them where they were from.

“Oh, we’re from here,” the father said. “Our house burned down last
night, but miraculously all of us got out safely. And that makes this a
pretty darn good day.”

Talk about two back-to-back wake-up calls...

There is always, always, always something to be grateful for!

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In our book, we share this entry from my grandmother’s journal,

dated September 16, 1977:

Today I’m sitting in my hospital bed waiting to have both my breasts

removed. But in a strange way, I feel like the lucky one. Until now I have
had no health problems. I’m a sixty-nine-year-old woman in the last
room at the end of the hall before the pediatric division of the hospital
begins. Over the past few hours I have watched dozens of cancer
patients being wheeled by in wheelchairs and rolling beds. None of these
patients could be a day older than seventeen.

That journal entry has been hanging up in our home office for the
past two decades, and it reminds Angel and me to practice gratitude
through thick and thin. No matter how good or bad we have it on any
particular day, we do our best to wake up grateful for our lives,
because other people in other places are desperately fighting for
theirs.

Think about your own life in this context of gratitude. How often do
you let go of what you think your life is supposed to look like and
sincerely appreciate it for everything it is? If you’re anything like the
rest of us, it’s probably not often enough.

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Finding sincere gratitude is much easier said than done in the hustle
of life, especially when hard times hit. And although Angel and I have
coped and grown through our fair share of truly hard times (which I
will touch upon at the end of this post), let’s be honest about
something: 98% of the time we create tragedy in our lives out of fairly
minor incidents. Something doesn’t go exactly as planned, but rather
than learn from the experience, we freak out about it and let stress
overcome us. Or we resist the small bits of progress we can make,
simply because we can’t achieve exactly what we want all at once.

Our challenge for you today is to start choosing differently—don’t let

the things that are beyond your control dominate you!

Here’s How

The biggest difference between peace and stress on an average day is

attitude. It’s all about how you look at a situation and what you
decide to do with it. It’s remembering that there are no certainties in
life; we don’t know exactly what the future will bring. So your best
strategy for living is to make the best and most positive use of the
present moment, even when it’s far from perfect. Especially when it’s
far from perfect!

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Your life, with all its ups and downs, unexpected twists and turns, has
brought you to this moment. It took each and every intricate,
confusing, and painful situation you have encountered to bring you
to right here, right now. And if you have the courage to admit that
you’re a little scared, and have the ability to smile even as you cry, the
nerve to ask for help when you need it, and the wisdom to take it
when it’s offered, then you have everything you need. You just have to
believe it so you can take the next step.

Angel and I have guided hundreds of our course students and

conference attendees through this process of perspective change—a
process of stepping forward with sincere gratitude, no matter what.
And that’s what I want to highlight for you here. We’re going to take a
quick look at some ways to find sincere gratitude when there’s
nothing obvious to be grateful for—when everything seems to be
going wrong.

We usually think of a time like this—dealing with a difficult person or

circumstance, struggling with a troubling life change, losing a loved
one, etc.—as something we don’t like. And it’s true, these are not
“good times.” I’m not suggesting we should rejoice at living through
disappointing or painful life experiences. But nonetheless there are

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ways we can find gratitude as we grow through them. Here are some
solid examples of how to do just that:

How to find gratitude around difficult people

We expect people to behave a certain way. Specifically, we expect

them to always treat us kindly, fairly, and respectfully. But the reality
is, some people won’t. They lose their tempers or act foolishly,
regardless of how we treat them. We must accept it.

Don’t lower your standards, but do remind yourself that removing

your expectations of others, especially those who are being difficult,
is the best way to avoid being disappointed by them. You will end up
sadly disappointed if you expect others will always do for you as you
do for them. Not everyone has the same heart as you. Not everyone’s
heart is filled with genuine gratitude.

When you’re forced to deal with a difficult person, you can be grateful
for having other people in your life who are far less difficult. You can
be grateful for having a way to practice being better at patience,
communication, and tempering your expectations. You can think of
this person as a teacher who is inadvertently helping you to grow

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stronger as a person. And, at the very least, you can be grateful for
them because they serve as a reminder of how not to be.

How to find gratitude when you catch yourself complaining

Many of us are have developed a subtle habit of complaining about

life. We might not even notice how often we’re doing it, but every
time we experience some tension in our lives (things not going
exactly our way), we immediately feel bitterness. This bitterness is a
form of complaining, and it’s a common way we waste our lives.

Gratitude is the antidote. Each time you notice yourself feeling bitter,
or complaining, notice that you have a story in your mind that’s
causing you to feel the way you do. Notice that you’re letting this
story about “how life should be” dominate you. Then find a small way
to be grateful instead:

• What could you be grateful for right now, if you really wanted to be
grateful?

• What could you appreciate about this moment?

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Seriously, when life gives you every reason to be negative, think of one
good reason to be positive. Remember, there’s always something to be
grateful for.

How to find gratitude when you are overwhelmed

The familiar faces, places, situations, and obligations we rely on and

interact with daily overwhelm us sometimes, especially when we’re
taking them for granted.

Have you ever noticed how the more familiar you become with an
amazing situation or relationship in your life, the more you seem to
take it for granted? And then, as it becomes more “expendable” in
your subconscious mind, the more it seems to overwhelm you on
busy days? You somehow grow to feel like this amazing thing is
getting in your way, even though it isn’t—it’s you that’s getting in your
way.

The bottom line is that we often take for granted the very things that
most deserve our gratitude. So challenge yourself to flip your
perspective in moments of overwhelm using a simple reframing tool
we often cover with our course students called “…and I love it!”

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“And I love it!” is a phrase that can be applied to the end of any
overwhelming thought. Here are a couple examples:

• I need to go grocery shopping, and pay the bills, and pick the kids
up from school in an hour…and I love it!

• My inbox is filled with two dozen client emails that need a

response today…and I love it!

Let this little reframing tool give you the perspective you need.
Because, again, the everyday things that overwhelm us are often
blessings in disguise.

Okay, now for some harder stuff...

How to find gratitude after job loss

No one wins at chess by only moving forward; sometimes you have to

move backward to put yourself in a position to win. And that’s a good
metaphor for your life’s work, too.

As painful as losing your job is, it’s an ending that leads to the
beginning of everything that comes next. Let the heaviness of being
successful be replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again. This

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new beginning is the start of a different story, the opportunity to

refresh your life, to reinvent who you are. See the beauty in this
opportunity—the freedom and liberation from a fixed routine—a
solid foundation from which you can rebuild certain aspects of your
life the way you always wanted it to be.

Remind yourself, as often as necessary, that you can find gratitude for
where you are. You can find gratitude for these moments of
reinvention—for pushing into the discomfort of getting good at
interviewing, learning new skills and leveling up. You can find
gratitude for the opportunity to grow stronger, even in the midst of
the growing pains that ultimately get you there.

How to find gratitude amid health problems

When we experience health problems, we usually say we have

nothing to be grateful for, because we forget something important
about what we’re going through: the pain of a health problem is for
the living only—for those of us who still have the chance of a future
on this earth.

A couple years ago, on the second to last day of her life, a close friend
of mine told me that her only regret was that she didn’t appreciate

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every year with the same passion and purpose that she’d had in the
last two years of her life, after she was diagnosed with terminal
cancer. “I’ve accomplished so much recently, and truly appreciated
every step,” she said. “If I had only known, I would have started
sooner.’”

Her words made me cry and smile at the same time. What was truly
miraculous was seeing the gratitude in her eyes at that moment. She
was sincerely grateful for being able to accomplish everything she
had accomplished in her final two years.

Her sentiment has remained with me. So, while I agree that health
problems are never fun, and can often be painful and debilitating, the
pain can still be mediated by a sense of gratitude about being alive.
About still having a chance to move forward. About still having a life
worth living, from moment to precious moment.

How to find gratitude when someone you love dies

One of the hardest realities to cope with is death. A person who gave
meaning to our life is now no longer in our life (at least not in the
flesh), and we are not the same person without them. We have to
change who we are—we are now a best friend who sits alone, a

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widow instead of a wife, a dad without a daughter, or a next-door

neighbor to someone new. We want life to be the way it was, before
death, and yet it never will be.

But can we still be grateful we had the gift of this person in our lives?
Yes.

Angel and I have dealt with the loss of siblings and best friends to
illness and suicide, so we know from experience that when you lose
someone you can’t imagine living without, your heart breaks wide
open. And the bad news is, you never completely get over the loss—
you will never forget them. In a backwards way, however, we
gradually learned that this is also the good news.

Ultimately, we grew to appreciate that, although death is an ending, it

is also a necessary part of living. And even though endings like these
often seem ugly, they are necessary for beauty too; otherwise, it’s
impossible to appreciate someone or something, because they are
unlimited. Limits illuminate beauty, and death is the ultimate limit—
a reminder that we need to be aware of this beautiful person and
appreciate this beautiful thing called life.

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Death is also a beginning, because while we have lost someone

special, this ending, like the loss of any wonderful life situation, is a
moment of reinvention. Although deeply sad, their passing forces us
to gradually reinvent our lives, and in this reinvention is an
opportunity to experience beauty in new, unseen ways and places.

And finally, death is an opportunity to celebrate a person’s life and to

be grateful for the beauty they showed us.

Now It’s Your Turn...

The bottom line is that life’s disappointments and struggles are not
easy to find gratitude for, but they can become incredible paths of
growth if we find the lessons in them—if we start to see everything as
our teacher.

Truly, the best time to focus on being grateful is when you don’t feel
like it. Because that’s when doing so can make the biggest difference.

...

Marc Chernoff and his wife, Angel, are the New York Times bestselling
authors of Getting Back to Happy: Change Your Thoughts, Change Your

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Reality, and Turn Your Trials into Triumphs. They are also the creators
of Marc & Angel Hack Life, a popular personal development blog.
Through their writing, coaching, and live events, they’ve spent the
past decade sharing proven strategies for getting unstuck in order to
find lasting happiness and success.

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A Case for Enjoying Little Moments,

Even When Life Sucks
by Nataly Kogan

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When I was 13 years old, my parents and I left almost everything we

owned (save for two suitcases we were each allowed to bring with us)
and the life we knew in the Soviet Union to try and make our way to
the United States.

Our first stop was a refugee settlement in Vienna, Austria. We lived in

a dilapidated apartment building with dozens of other Russian
Jewish families trying to make their way to the United States. My
parents and I shared a tiny room; they had one of the small beds and
I had the other.

One morning when my father came back from the market, where he
unloaded crates to make a few dollars, he had an idea. “C’mon, girls,”
he said. My mom and I were just waking up. “Let’s go see the Vienna
Opera House. They have free tours inside and it’s supposed to be
really beautiful.”

“You’re crazy!” I told him. “We’re living in this disgusting place, we

have no money, we have no idea when we’ll even get to America—if
we do—and you want to go sightseeing?”

Sure, I was being a stubborn teenager, and it’s the job of a stubborn
teenager to disagree with their parents. But mostly I couldn’t fathom

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how we could enjoy something while we lived with so much

uncertainty and worry.

“You’re right,” my dad told me. “Life sucks right now, absolutely. But
we have a choice. We can either sit here and wallow in that or we can
go see something beautiful and enjoy our time here together.”

I went along with my parents to see the Vienna Opera House, but I
made certain that they knew I thought it was a crazy idea.

Waiting in line for the free tour, my dad befriended an older

gentleman behind us. After the tour, our new friend offered to take us
all out for ice cream at the café across the street. There is a photo of
us from that day: Everyone is smiling ear to ear because we’re in
Vienna, outside the beautiful opera house, having just been treated to
ice cream! Everyone, that is, but me. A few years after we came to
America, I cut my face out of the photo because I couldn’t stand my
look of stubborn unhappiness.

Back then I couldn’t allow myself to enjoy the moment. I was

convinced that you don’t enjoy little moments when your life sucks.
You suffer, you wallow, you live your struggle. To find a moment of joy

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or kindness or beauty when life wasn’t okay felt like cheating on

reality.

After several months in refugee settlements in Europe, we were

incredibly grateful to get permission to come to America as refugees.
Eventually, as we moved out of the projects and got off welfare, life
got easier. But I still couldn’t allow myself to enjoy the many everyday
moments that this new life brought, because they paled in
comparison to the bigger prize I was after: the euphoric land of
happiness that awaited me if I only achieved “enough” and did
“enough” with this gift of getting to live in America.

I spent two decades living according to my “I’ll be happy when…”

mantra, always thinking that the next big achievement was going to
finally get me to the promised land of happiness—from graduating at
the top of my class in college to getting a series of impossible-to-get
jobs and starting companies, to marrying my college sweetheart and
having a little girl, and to living in New York City, my American
dream. But while I felt proud of every accomplishment I had worked
so hard to achieve, the happiness I felt was always short-lived and
eventually popped like a bubble. I was off to chase the next one.

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It took me two decades of chasing happiness in all the wrong

directions to learn the lesson my dad was trying to teach me way
back then: Happiness doesn’t arise from making everything in our
lives perfect. It comes from embracing life as it is and finding small
moments of gratitude, joy, kindness, beauty, and human connection
within it. By truly being present for those moments and being grateful
for them, we find so much joy and the resilience to weather life’s
storms.

Learning Gratitude

I didn’t discover the power of gratitude as much as I stumbled onto

research about it one day, about eight years ago. I read books and
scientific papers about the benefits for years before actually trying it.
To be honest, I was incredibly skeptical and just didn’t think that
something as simple as pausing to appreciate the small, good
moments in my day would make any significant difference in how I
felt.

But I was desperate to feel better, less overwhelmed, and more in

agreement with my life, rather than constantly feeling like I was
fighting it, so I reluctantly began a gratitude experiment: I committed

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to myself that I would practice gratitude for 30 days in a row. Every

day I would write down three things I was grateful for and express my
gratitude to one person.

I didn’t want to believe it, but in just a few weeks, I noticed a

difference

No, I didn’t suddenly become some happy-go-lucky person I was

never meant to be (and, frankly, didn’t want to be). But I developed a
fundamentally different way of moving through life, one in which I
stopped taking for granted all the tiny good moments that were
already part of it. I learned to experience the joy that was already
there, hiding in the little moments of my days, waiting for me to
simply pause long enough to notice and honor them with my
attention. I stopped looking for happiness out there and learned to
find it right here. I felt more connected to friends, family, and my
colleagues, and even on the toughest days, I managed my stress
better (which research shows is one of the long-lasting effects of
practicing gratitude).

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Two Ways to Be Grateful

For the past six years, I’ve dedicated my life to helping people make
gratitude a daily practice through the company I started, called
Happier. I often say that gratitude is like broccoli—most of us know
that it’s good for us, but to experience the benefits, we have to take an
action. Broccoli won’t make you healthier unless you eat it, and
gratitude won’t make you happier, less stressed, and more resilient
(just a few of the scientifically proven benefits) unless you practice it.

So I want to share two of my absolute favorite gratitude practices

with you and encourage you to give each one a week of regular
practice. At the end of each week, pause to reflect on how you felt
and whether the practice resonated.

1. Bookend your days with gratitude.

Begin and end the day by thinking about a few things you’re grateful
for. It’s important to capture them somehow—jot them down, take a
photo, share them with someone—and be as specific as possible.
What you’re grateful for can be really small, such as the warmth of the
sun on your face, a kind text from a friend, or someone holding the
door for you at work. Research shows that frequent positive

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experiences make us happier than any big event, so small things

really do count.

By beginning your morning with gratitude, you’re priming yourself for

the best day possible while also boosting your resilience to help you
face whatever challenges come your way.

And when you end the day with gratitude, you help to reverse your
brain’s natural tendency to focus more on the negative than the
positive. Your brain is really good at focusing on what went wrong
during your day, but when you practice gratitude, you help it to
remember what went right and boost your overall feelings of well-
being.

2. Imagine life without this.

At times when I find myself caught up in thinking about how

something is not quite right—my flight is delayed, my garage door is
broken, someone in my family is driving me nuts—I remind myself to
pause and think, Imagine life without this.

Try it. When something stresses you out, pause and consider, just for
a moment, what your life would be like without it.

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It doesn’t mean you don’t wish that something—or someone—were

different, but this simple exercise will help you feel a sense of
gratitude for the many amazing comforts, conveniences, and people
that make your life possible, even when they aren’t being perfect (or
rather, how you wish they were).

Our brains are extremely adaptable and it’s easy to take the many
blessings that are part of our lives for granted. Thinking about not
having them is a wonderful reminder, especially in those moments
when you’re lost in frustration.

Practice Daily

Practicing gratitude is one of the easiest, best investments you can

make to support your emotional health. I hope you’ll make a
commitment to make it a daily practice. And if you’d like learn some
other practices and get additional support, I invite you to check out
Gratitude Daily, my new 21-day audio program to help you cultivate a
regular habit of gratitude.

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...

Nataly Kogan is the author of Happier Now: How to Stop Chasing

Perfection and Embrace Everyday Moments (Even the Difficult Ones)
and founder of Happier, Inc.

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The Beauty of Being Out of Control

by Jeremiah Parks

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I set my alarm last night and then this morning woke up precisely
when I wanted to. I already knew what the weather would be, so I got
dressed before looking outside. I took my kids to school and fully
expected it to begin at precisely 8:15, allowing me to plan my
morning meetings to the minute. I zoomed around town knowing
exactly how much gas I had in my car, and should I need gas, I have
an all-knowing digital map in my pocket to help me find the nearest
station as well as a credit card to pay at the pump in seconds. I
opened an app on my phone to access up-to-the-minute news on just
about every major event around the globe, and I thought, Man, this
world is out of control. Yet, in my own day-to-day life, I actually have
control over almost everything.

We have the wonderful gift of communication with loved ones at our

fingertips at all times, schooling options and financial strategies,
insurance for every valuable, and customization of just about
anything from lattes to the soundtrack to our lives. These privileges
give us the subconscious sense that we have control, right?

This identification with power makes us feel good. We feel strong.

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The truth is, I can get addicted to this feeling—so addicted that I
begin to build expectations for things to go a certain way, that is, “my
way.”  I can probably speak for many of us in saying, when
circumstances or health or other people’s choices don’t go our way,
we can reactively feel that life is unfair or that things are out of our
control.

Recently, I felt that way about a situation. Something I was looking

forward to didn’t go the way I had planned and hoped it would. I was
inconvenienced, frustrated, and extremely disappointed. But then I
thought, What if the control I feel over most of my life is just an illusion
to begin with? What if, in our modern, prosperous, and productive
society, our capacity for handling uncertainty has become very limited
compared to that of most folks throughout history?

I believe one of the keys to our own resilience and stability lies in
extreme generosity.

Giving Till It Heals

I grew up in a family with limited resources and an expectation of

instability. Our power was regularly shut off, our ability to pay for
housing (or keep a consistent home) kept changing, and whether my

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dad would come home as Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde was anyone’s guess.
But whenever these vulnerabilities would lead to yet another life-
altering experience, we all seemed to be able to go with the flow a lot
more easily than most people in my more sophisticated world do
today. The “Injustice!” alarm system in my mind went off far less often
back then, though I was probably suffering much more injustice than
I am now. I was not expecting a utopian existence, so I wasn’t
shocked or disappointed when I didn’t get one.

People with less control over their circumstances tend to be more

skillful at taking the good lot and the bad lot and living with it,
through it, and around it like ambiguity ninjas. And as I and my social
network have grown in education and prosperity, my ninja skills seem
to have devolved into that of a frozen mummy.

Resilience is born out of necessity. When we have to persevere, we

find our strength. Suffering produces character traits that can’t be
attained in any other way...

Or can they?

What if we, even as our society cultivates convenience all around us,
can in some way reproduce a sort of “chosen suffering” that gives us a

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touch point, a practical life skill, keeping us nimble, happier, and

calmer even amid life’s uncertainties?

There is a key hidden for us inside the word compassion. The original
meaning of compassion is to “co-suffer,” to suffer with another. So
even when our lives aren’t full of suffering, there is something to
choosing to suffer with another that draws us into the pain and joy of
life’s struggle in a significant way.

In my family and community, it’s known as sacrificial generosity—

giving until it hurts. Call it a life hack or a profound spiritual practice,
there is something about painful generosity that is also very healing.

Sacrificial generosity is one of the few things in our modern culture

that requires letting go. Because the thing is, we don’t have to do it. In
our modern western world, we—unlike most humans who have ever
existed—can curate a pretty comfy life. We can customize most of
our experience with a combination of settings, headphones, and cold,
hard cash.

But what if a practice of letting go of certainty and control is

something our human nature needs? Without control, where is our
opportunity to be humble, broken, bored, or scared? Of course, those

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opportunities do come, but often in crisis, and when they do, we are
taken off guard, not prepared.

In sacrificial generosity, we can practice for the curveballs life will

inevitably throw us. It reminds us that, ultimately, we are not really in
control at all. It gives us space to see our insecurities, the deep, dark
issues buried within, so light can begin to shine on them.

Alongside Need

We all know that learning to navigate disappointment in our own

lives gives us tools to deal with others’ challenges—but the converse
is also true. Relationship with someone who isn’t living a perfectly
shiny life gives us room to see our own shadows and work on a more
resilient perspective for ourselves and others, giving us an experience
of real compassion (co-suffering) as opposed to sympathy.

If we go through life climbing the ladder of success, always and only

looking up, we tend to compare ourselves only with those who have
more. What a sad way to exist! But when you widen your gaze,
looking at the whole of humanity, or even your community or family,
there is always someone who could look at you with a pang of
jealousy.

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We all have something to give. And we all have ways we can give until
it hurts. Our time, wisdom, knowledge, and money are all deep wells
we’ve dug in our lives that we want to continue to fill, of course, but
not to the point of stagnation. There must be an outflow.

Naturally, we’re afraid that if we let that outflow gain momentum, but
we’re not pouring enough in from the top, we’ll end up with an empty
bucket. But I want to suggest that the human spirit is mysterious and
doesn’t work mechanically. We aren’t robots; we’re soulful,
interconnected beings, capable of gleaning from others and giving so
much more than we realize. The greatest mystery is that when we
give until it hurts, we regularly gain much more in return.

Of course, appropriate boundaries and our weaknesses come into

play here. Nobody who has lived in an abusive relationship needs to
be “sacrificially generous” in their cesspool of un-health. But in the
areas of life where we have the opportunity to hustle, win, and even
thrive, we are meant to link arms with others, not in handouts or
cheap, feel-good charity, but in eye-to-eye contact and vulnerable
hope.

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We’re wired to learn in the context of a community what real

generosity means. This built-in learning system is so easily lost in the
individualistic societies we live in. Cheers to our personal growth for
sure, but extreme individualism must be balanced with some
extreme version of self-sacrifice as well, or we get out of whack pretty
quickly.

This life is a series of joys mixed with griefs. For generations, we have
been slowly losing our ability to embrace that grief because we have
so much opportunity to numb ourselves with medication,
entertainment, or running away. Learning to embrace the sorrow of
life by just opening our hearts in generosity to another, even when it’s
painful, breaks through the walls that are built up to defend ourselves
against feeling pain. We begin to see and love people in new ways,
and we are impacted to the core…with sadness, yes, but then also
with deep joy and connectedness that we can never attain by seeking
pleasure through a “perfect life.”

Get Your Hopes Up

We have a family rule at our house: “Always get your hopes up!”

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Children often hear, “Oh, I don’t want you to get your hopes up,”
because we’re afraid they’ll be disappointed. We’re so afraid of
emotional pain. But what if you could, even to some degree, get over
that fear? Yes, your hopes will be dashed sometimes, but you are
stronger than you know! What if pain were something you actually
reached into, intentionally and regularly—in a local hospital or
shelter, in your friendships, or even in a developing nation if you have
the chance?

Consider giving to and volunteering with a nonprofit that you believe

in and stay actively involved with their mission, so you’re not just
making a donation but “feeling” the pain point that organization is
working to meet in the world. I can guarantee that your ambiguity
ninja skills will grow. Your vision to look around and see the need and
the mysterious graces around you will sharpen. Your strength to lean
in to painful places, in your own life and others’ situations, will
increase.

The willingness to practice sacrificial generosity, to serve others in

the midst of their pain, to face our fear of negative emotions is an
unlikely cure for our angst. So let’s get our hopes up, boldly face the

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pain in our world with some connected strength we may have been
missing out on, and give until it hurts.

...

Jeremiah Parks is the founder and director of Heartwork, an

organization committed to inspiring the next generation to
experience the joy of spending themselves for others. He and his
family are also embarking on a new adventure, serving orphaned
children in the mountains of Guatemala for half the year, spending
the other half at their home in Colorado.

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Teaching Kids How to Live a Fulfilled

Life
by Kristen Welch

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“Mom, I keep thinking about Mike,” my son, who was 15 at the time,
said. I was sitting at my desk, tucked in the corner of my bedroom,
and I stopped typing mid-sentence when I heard the vulnerable
words from my six-foot boy. I knew he was referring to the old middle
school friend he’d lost contact with when he’d moved schools.

“What are you thinking?” I prompted.

“I think he might still need a friend,” Jon-Avery said quietly. We both

had been affected when Mike lost his mom in the sixth grade. It had
been three years, but it’s something a friend never forgets. I guess you
could say that was the day I helped my son devise a plan to
intentionally reestablish connection with an old friend.

So, of course, they started with video games in our living room. It
didn’t take more than a nudge to put Mike back into our lives. He
became a regular at our house, in our van, at our table. Mike came to
church with us every week, and when he casually mentioned he
didn’t have a Bible, my husband and son took him to a bookstore and
he chose a Bible. He was so proud to see his name in gold letters
etched across the front.

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Jon-Avery and his sister decided Mike needed to go to summer camp

with them. They knew it would cost several hundred dollars, so a
group of friends baked cookies and cupcakes and took them door-to-
door to help Mike with the fee.

Soon we were picking up some of Mike’s friends, too, to go to youth

events. And one day when we were running late, I asked Jon-Avery in
a frustrated tone how many friends we were picking up.

He said, “Mom, how many seats do we have in our van? You told me
we are supposed to share what we have.”

I smiled at his smirk in the rearview mirror because I couldn’t argue

with that. My son was learning a lesson I’d been trying to teach him,
and when I got over my temporary annoyance, I felt a warmth inside
about it.

I think many parents are like me and my husband: we want our kids
to grow up knowing what really makes for a meaningful and
rewarding life. We don’t want them to chase accomplishments and
accumulation at the expense of the basic human values that truly
make life worthwhile. We want them to live lives that are satisfying
and joyful and bring them lasting contentment.

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Life is a journey, and most of what I’ve learned has been through trial
and error. I don’t consider myself an expert, but if I had to name the
single most important thing we need to do for our kids to help them
live lives of contentment for the rest of their years, it would be this:

Teach them to be generous.

Putting Ability and Need Together

I used to think generosity only referred to money, but now I would

define it very simply as sharing what you have with others—so yes,
money and time, but also gifts we possess and resources such as
extra seats in your vehicle and chairs at your dinner table. Ultimately,
generosity is giving us.

Teaching kids generosity isn’t like teaching them math. It’s more like
helping them assimilate some fundamental truths. They have an
ability to give, and others can use the help they have to offer.

Help your kids learn the value of money and things.

If you’re like me, you want your children to understand the difference
between needs and wants, to know how to save a buck and to live

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frugally, so that they have the means to be generous when the

opportunity presents itself. It’s tough in a culture that thrives on
instant gratification, overspending, and debt.

One of the most basic things we need to do if our kids are going to
understand the importance of generosity and its impact is teach
them about hard work and the value of money. For example, my
teens have both contributed to buying their first cars, and even
though these aren’t new or impressive vehicles, they love and take
care of them because they know how hard it was to save money.

When my kids work hard, save their money, and reach their goal of
being able to buy something they really want, not only do they
appreciate it more, but they also learn something in the delay. The
reward is much sweeter. And that means that sharing what they have
is more sacrificial.

Give your kids a chance to earn money so they can learn how to
handle it. Teach them to save and give a percentage of their money
away. And when your kids have an unselfish thought to do something
for someone else with their hard-earned money or limited time—
encourage them to go for it!

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Give your kids a broader perspective on the world.

Timothy L. Smith said, “Generosity is not something that comes later

after you accumulate wealth. It’s something you live out wherever
you are in life today. It’s not something that ‘shows up’—it’s a lifestyle
you cultivate.” [1]

A great way to cultivate this kind of lifestyle is by giving our kids the
gift of perspective. Kids are like us—their perspective is based on
what is in front of them. But when we can expose them to other
cultures and introduce them to people who are different than they
are, we are helping them to understand the world better and see the
needs that exist.

I would go so far as to say it’s a part of our job as parents to find ways
to change how our children see the world by altering their view
occasionally. If they see life through only one lens, they will believe
the misconception that everyone in the world has what they do, and
their blessings will start looking a lot like expectations.

We can offer a new worldview in a variety of ways, but mostly it

occurs through discomfort. What we know; where we live, work,
attend school and church; what we eat—all these things are familiar

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and comfortable. It’s not necessarily perfect or what we want, but we

feel safe in what we know. So we have to deliberately move our kids
beyond those comfort zones at times. They’ll see richness in how
others do things, but they’ll also see differences highlighted.

I remember getting a big bear hug from Jon-Avery after Mike went
home from a visit at our house. I said, “What was that for?”

Jon-Avery gave me a somber look and said, “I’m just glad I have you,
Mom.”

Without his saying more, I knew he was grateful I was alive, because
he was putting himself in the motherless Mike’s shoes.

This is what perspective does—it gives our kids a breathtaking view

of what they have instead of what they don’t. And then they can start
thinking about what their responsibility to others really is.

Expose your kids to poorer parts of town, other regions of the

country, and foreign nations where people have a different standard
of living, a different language, and different customs. They’ll
appreciate other cultures more as well as begin thinking about how
their lives can intersect fruitfully with other lives.

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A Life of Joy

There’s something deeply satisfying about sharing what you have

with others. Yes, it helps you see the world in a whole new light, but
you also see yourself differently.

Mike might have been the first kid we opened our home to, but he
wasn’t the last. We turned our extra bedroom into a place to share.
We’ve had cancer patients who needed access to the Houston
Medical Center, exchange students from Ukraine, missionaries from
around the world, and a host of other people in and out of our home.
Through it all, generosity has given us something that stuff can’t—joy.

Mother Teresa said, “Joy is a sign of generosity. When you are full of
joy, you move faster and you want to go about doing good for
everyone.”

Your kids are paying attention to what you’re doing as a family. Help
them learn the path to joy and fulfillment through generosity.

While happiness can be fleeting, contentment is looking at your life

and feeling fulfilled and satisfied with it. And who can ask for more
than that?

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...

Kristen Welch has been blogging for more than a decade at We are
THAT family and she is also the author of best-selling Raising Grateful
Kids in an Entitled World. Her newest release is Raising World
Changers in a Changing World. Kristen finds joy, contentment, and
perspective as the founder of Mercy House Global, a nonprofit that
provides dignified jobs for women in poverty through a monthly
subscription club called Fair Trade Friday.

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Freely Give: The Simplicity of

Generosity
by Jeff Shinabarger

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Generosity means to freely give, expecting nothing in return. Is that

even possible in the society we live in?

I buy TOMS Shoes and they give shoes. So in this I am kind of

generous, but I do get some new shoes. I make a monthly donation to
charity: water to bring clean water to developing countries, but I do
get a deduction on my taxes. This past October I went to a nonprofit
fundraiser and auction, but I did eat dinner, they gave me a t-shirt, I
had a drink, and I walked away with imaginative new art for my living
room by a local illustrator. Are these really acts of generosity,
considering I received a benefit every time I gave?

Is it even possible to be generous in a culture of kick-backs?

Generosity. I have pondered this personally, wrestled with it deeply as

a nonprofit leader, and received it as a gift from others. How do we
reclaim what it means to simply be generous in a world that took the
simplicity away?

Generosity Experiment

I enjoy taking a seemingly impossible question, giving myself a short-

term run at answering it, and seeing if I learn anything from the

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process. Many of my greatest creative ventures I have started as

social experiments. From Gift Card Giver, to Community Grounds, to
Love or Work, to Plywood People, I have always had a willingness to
try a short-term project for the sake of long-term change.

Richard Rohr impacted me when he declared, “We don’t think

ourselves into a new way of living; we live ourselves into a new way of
thinking.” I love to push my way of living, thinking, and normality.

You and I know deep down that we can do anything for 30 days,
right? We can make our bed every day and lead to better productivity.
We can wear the same thing every day and realize that clothes do not
make us who we are. We can cut alcohol from our diets and realize
that our body and our mind are refreshed and focused. We can do
just about anything for 30 days. But could we be generous for 30
days? Instead of giving only on Giving (or Nonprofit Marketing)
Tuesday or just on the final day of the year, could we actually practice
generosity for 30 days straight?

Well, I tried it and here is what happened.

First, I had to set some ground rules.

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• I can’t let people know what I am doing (not even my wife).

• Every day, I will listen to the people around me and try to do one
act of generosity.

• When I give, I can’t receive anything in return, except thankfulness.

• Whenever possible, I’ll try to give something that I already own

(but if buying something is the best option to meet the need, then
I’ll do it).

When I woke up the first morning of this experiment, I was curious

to see what would happen. How might I be generous today? I didn’t
know that my first act of generosity would be toward the person
closest to me.

My wife usually drops the kids off at school and I pick them up. But
this day, my wife was running late for work. So I offered to take the
kids to school that morning.

Was this generosity or was it simply logistical kindness? It doesn’t

matter. My day started by looking at the needs of others and I
realized it started at home.

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In fact, I quickly grasped that a lifestyle of generosity should not start

with a credit card transaction to a nonprofit organization; it should
start with the people you do life with. We don’t have to go somewhere
to be generous. Sometimes we just need to be present here, and the
need for generosity reveals itself.

But whether the opportunity for generosity lay at home or out in the
world, finding it would require me to really hear what people were
saying about themselves.

The Potential in Active Listening

To walk through a day seeking generosity would take active listening.

I would have to really pay attention to what people were saying about
their frustrations or neediness, and I might have to draw them out
and verify that I was correctly understanding them. My conversations
changed from sharing what was interesting about my life to trying to
discover what interesting needs were in the lives of others.

Day after day I was listening for ways to give—and they were
everywhere around me. I gave away many books. I gave a sweatshirt
to someone in my office who was cold. I gave a power cord to an
iPhone in need. A friend needed a conference room for a meeting. I

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carried a propane tank for a random lady at the grocery store who
was trying to manage three kids and a cart. I posted about a friend’s
new project on my Instagram. I talked on the phone with a friend
who was having some marriage challenges. I gave $50 to a friend who
needed to go on a date with his spouse but couldn’t afford it at the
time. I told an employee who was exhausted to go home early. I read
a manuscript for a book that needed some feedback. I bought a coffee
for a friend in my neighborhood who was walking the streets. I lent
some tools to a friend who was working on a project. The list goes on
and on.

I mention all these examples, not because I want to celebrate my

accomplishments, but because I was surprised about how many
moments we have surrounding us every day to be generous to people
really close to us. When we are proximate with people, we have
chances to give freely to people every day.

Some of the places that I actively listened were in lines at retail

stores, grocery stores, coffee shops, and restaurants. It’s amazing
when you take the pods out of your ears how loud the needs of others
you start to hear. When you really start listening, you realize how
many ways you can give. From stuff you are not using at your house

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or office, to time and expertise that others could really gain from, to
buying someone’s coffee in line. Opportunities of generosity surround
us, but we have lost the art of listening for opportunities to give.

When we minimize our offerings to official giving moments, we

forget that we have so much to give. We can give time, influence,
expertise, laughter, a smile, and sometimes even money. I recently
heard Scott Harrison say, “The more you give, the more you give.”
When I started listening to others and giving daily, I realized I could
be giving many times daily and wanted to give more.

Generosity from the Other Side

Now I want to flip the switch. As much as I enjoyed giving through

this experiment, and as much as I think all of us should do this more
often in life to remind ourselves that we have so much, I also realized
that to fully understand generosity we must also learn to receive.
Giving makes you feel good, but you fully understand generosity only
when someone gives you something that you can never pay back.

A couple months after this experiment, I was playing basketball with

some friends. I was standing at the top of the key and I shot a three. I

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missed it and instantly lunged for the rebound. Then pop! I thought
someone had launched a basketball at the back of my ankle.

I had torn my Achilles tendon in my right leg. I had to have surgery,

wear a cast, and refrain from driving for two months. I needed the
help of others. I needed to experience the generosity of my
community.

I remember the first time I asked for a ride from a friend. They gave
me a look of puppy-dog pity, mixed with an expression that said, “I
don’t have time for this,” but they shook their emotions off and said,
“Sure.”

Over two months, I rode with more than 30 friends. They drove out of
their way to take me to a different space. They drove out of their way
to pick me up to see my physical therapist and at times even waited
through the therapy. They sat with me when I was on drugs; they
lifted my scooter into back seats; they saw me hop up stairs
balancing one crutch and a railing.

That season was beautifully humiliating. I couldn’t do anything for

these friends; they only did things for me. Their generosity brought
me through that season.

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It also led to some of the greatest conversations I have experienced in

years. Sitting in traffic with a friend with no agenda but their sacrifice
to help me opened up deep conversations about life and love and
even suffering. I had friends reveal dreams they had never told
anyone about and confess to fears they had never shared before. I had
people tell me things they resented about me, and there was
forgiveness.

Isn’t it funny that an injury led to generosity, which led to

vulnerability?

There is nothing I could do to pay the others back. All I could do was
receive their gifts, time, and service. I felt the humility and beauty,
and the closeness, of caring generosity.

Why Not Join Me?

Generosity is not about a big check, a giveback, or volunteerism.

Generosity starts with ears to hear the needs that are close to us and
a willingness to give with nothing in return. We do it with tenderness,
remembering the feelings of those we are helping.

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Most of us have much more than enough. Unfortunately, most of us

have also lost the simplicity of generosity. But it’s not too late to get
that back.

As you move on to what I’m sure is another busy day, I challenge you
to listen to the people close to you, take out your AirPods, and hear
how you might give. May we find the simplicity of generosity and
freely give with nothing in return.

...

Jeff Shinabarger is the founder and executive director of Plywood

People, a nonprofit in Atlanta leading a community of start-ups doing
good. He is the author of More or Less and Yes or No and the co-host
of the Love or Work podcast, asking the question “Is it possible to
change the world, stay in love, and have a healthy family?”

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How Owning Less Led Me to a

Happier Life
by Tammy Strobel

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“She had so much.” That’s how New York Times reporter Stephanie
Rosenbloom described me in her article “But Will it Make You
Happy?” [1]

I thought so, too. In 2003, I married my sweetheart—Logan—and we

moved into a beautiful apartment. After the move, we filled our home
with material goods such as new furniture, clothes, books, and more.
I was also making a good wage working in the investment
management industry.

But despite our good fortune, we were $30,000 in debt and living
paycheck to paycheck. We frequently argued about money, and those
disagreements contributed to stress and anxiety in our daily lives.
Our squabbles prompted us to take a step back and reevaluate our
finances and what brought us happiness.

As we began to rethink how we spent our time and money,

downsizing our lives became a frequent topic of conversation at the
dinner table. In 2005, we started reading Your Money or Your Life by
Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez, and the book empowered us to
change our spending habits, our relationship with time, and our long-

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term goals. We moved into a smaller apartment to save money and

started to slowly give away some our belongings. The big turning
point, however, came when Logan found a YouTube video featuring
Dee Williams in 2007.

After taking a trip to Guatemala to help build a school, Dee returned

home and realized there was a lot of stuff in her life she simply didn’t
need. Dee described her trip by saying, “I met some incredible people.
They were generous and kind and very, very poor. They didn’t have
running water or electricity in their houses. They cooked outside and
shared a bathroom with their neighbors. And still, they seemed
happy…at least, they made our work fun and helped me feel happy.”

When Dee returned to Portland, Oregon, she decided to downsize

dramatically, and subsequently she built an 84-square-foot house on
wheels.

Dee’s story resonated with us on many levels. We admired Dee

because she focused on building strong relationships, giving back to
her community, and taking care of her health. She wasn’t focused on
the acquisition of material goods. Instead she was living her ideals,
and more importantly, she seemed happy, grateful, and content.

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Dee’s story motivated us to go smaller, and by 2008 we moved into a

400-square-foot apartment that was within walking distance of my
job. During this time, we began giving away even more belongings to
friends, family, and charities because Dee inspired us to buy a tiny
house on wheels.

Between 2005 and 2008, we gave away or sold the following items: our
cars, the television, enough wedding china to serve two dozen people,
pots, pans, flatware, chairs, couches, lamps, coffee tables, kitchen
appliances, a library of over 300 books, bookshelves, an
entertainment center, more than 200 CDs, wine racks, cat towers,
rugs, towels, file cabinets, and more. The more we gave away, the
better we felt. And, with less stuff, we felt prepared for life in a tiny
house.

Some of our friends and family members thought we were crazy,

because we’d worked hard for material things. They couldn’t fathom
why we wanted to live in a small apartment, buy a tiny house, or give
away our belongings.

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Loved ones asked us questions like: How will you host guests? What if
you give something away and regret it? Won’t you drive one
another crazy in such a small dwelling?

Instead of hosting guests in our home, we treated them to a stay at a

hotel or bed and breakfast, and that felt good. Logan and I didn’t
regret giving away our physical belongings. Also, living in small
spaces together was fun, not crazy-making. In fact, our marriage
became stronger. When problems arose, we talked instead of
retreating to separate ends of our home. Surprisingly, giving away 90
percent of our belongings made us even more grateful for the stuff we
kept, and for our marriage.

Logan and I have been married for over 15 years, and our relationship
survived and thrived as we experimented with living simply. For
example, we took on challenges such as The 100 Thing Challenge, a
project that entailed culling our personal possessions to under 100
items. And, to reduce our food waste, we lived without a refrigerator
for over a year. Furthermore, we experimented with tiny house living.
For over four years, we lived in a 128-square-foot home, and we had
lots of adventures in our small abode!

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In 2018, we both turned 40 years old, and we’re happy, grateful, and

more in love than ever. To be clear, we don’t walk on rainbows
(although that would be fun). Downsizing didn’t make our problems
magically disappear, but living simply gave us the time and money to
prioritize our family, well-being, and changing needs.

For example, shortly after we moved into our tiny house in October
2011, my mom and stepdad, Mahlon, drove to Portland, Oregon, to
help us move the last of our belongings into our new home. Plus, we
ate tasty food, walked through pumpkin patches on Sauvie Island,
and visited friends.

Mahlon’s health had been declining for a few years. Nevertheless, he

seemed cheerful, less forgetful, and happier while in Portland. His
demeanor gave me hope—hope that he could recover from the
health issues that plagued his body and mind. Sadly, Mahlon died
seven months after his trip to Portland, and his loss devastated me.

From an outside perspective, it probably looked like my life was going

exceedingly well, and in some ways that’s true. My first book—You
Can Buy Happiness (and It’s Cheap)—was released in September 2012,
and we’d moved back to California to be near family. I was grateful to

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be living near loved ones and for the external accolades I received for
my writing. Yet I was deeply depressed. Mahlon was gone, and
without Mahlon, our family unit evaporated. I felt unmoored, and
sadness seeped into my bones.

In Stitches, Anne Lamott writes, “I’d given talks for years about how
when it comes to grieving, the culture lies—you really do not get over
the biggest losses, you don’t pass through grief in any organized way,
and it takes years, and infinitely more tears than people want to allot
you. Yet the gift of grief is incalculable, in giving you back to yourself.”

I wholeheartedly agree with Lamott’s sentiment. We live in a culture

that ignores the reality of grief, illness, and death. These topics can be
challenging to read and talk about because they force us to face our
frailty and mortality. We can, however, learn from individuals who are
struggling with a severe illness, and the loss of a loved one can teach
us how to live meaningful and joyful lives

Mahlon died in June of 2012, and since then the intensity of my grief
has changed. The first year after Mahlon’s death was the hardest
because there were so many firsts, such as the first holiday without

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him, the first birthday, the launch of my first book, and more. I still
miss Mahlon and I don’t think that will ever change.

In a way, losing Mahlon—and caring for him before his death—

reaffirmed why I simplified my life. His illness and death taught me to
worry less, to be more loving, and to focus on creating a happy life by
getting back to the essentials. Doing things such as spending time
with loved ones, starting new creative projects, and practicing
gratitude continue to remind me to enjoy my good fortune.

I’m humbled and amazed by the twists and turns my life has taken. I
never imagined that living simply would play such a prominent role
in my personal or professional life.

Yes, owning less led me to a happier life. But it’s only one piece of the
happiness puzzle. My experience with grief, health challenges, and
career ups and downs have also left me with a profound sense of
gratitude and joy for my loved ones, home, and belongings.

Today, I no longer live in a tiny house on wheels, and I’ve stopped

counting my possessions. Yet Logan and I still live simply and
continue to save money for our old age fund and travel adventures.
Also, living with less turned me into a profoundly different person,

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hopefully a better human with more empathy and compassion for

others.

...

Tammy Strobel is an author, photographer, and traveler. She shares

her words and photos on Rowdy Kittens and she is the author of You
Can Buy Happiness (and It’s Cheap).

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#Gratitude
by Patrick Rhone

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I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not normal. I think deeply about
things. Some may argue that I do so too much.

For instance, let me discuss the chair I’m sitting in as I write this. It’s
an old chair. I don’t know much about the history of it before we
owned it, but I’m guessing it’s from the 1920s, based on the design
and materials. The arms and legs are made of beautifully carved
hardwood. The seat and back are made of a rich red leather that is
tacked down and stuffed with a dense fiber. It’s a lovely chair. One of
the “don’t make ’em like they used to” kind.

Like I said, I think deeply about things, so here’s where I’m going to
break your brain a little… It took hundreds of people to make this
chair. Perhaps thousands, if you think about it deeply enough. Yes,
really. Let’s try to count them.

There are the woodworker who carved the arms and legs, the
machinists who made the tacks and screws, the farmer who raised
the cow who gave the hide for the leather. There are the workers at
the factory who butchered and skinned the cow and the tanner who
dyed it red. There’s the person (possibly more than one) who

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assembled all of these components together. Let’s just guess that

we’re at about a dozen folks so far.

Now, all of that is making the assumption that those various tasks
were done by solitary workers. This was more than likely not the case.
For instance, the tacks and screws were made in a factory, and it is
far more likely that each one in this particular chair was made by a
dozen or more different people. Tanning is not a solitary process
either. Even if this chair was not made in large numbers, scale
production techniques for every component ensures that at a
minimum dozens more were involved in the creation of this one
single chair.

Of course, the wood for the arms and legs came from a tree and was
carved with tools that themselves were made by many hands. The
tacks and screws are made of steel that came from a mill. The tree
had to be cut down. The steel mill had to get the raw materials from a
mine.

This means factories had to be built for all of these processes to

happen. Companies had to be formed to provide the capital to build

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them. Those factories had to be administered and staffed. Logging

companies founded. Tanneries created.

I think you can see where I’m going with this. In fact, every step,
process, and component in the manufacture of this single chair is the
result of the individual actions of thousands of people.

Almost every single object in our modern lives is the product of

thousands of hands. Thousands of people doing a job. Thousands of
hours of labor. Even the simplest of items took a certain amount of
complexity to produce.

So, why do I think so deeply about something as simple and ordinary

as a chair and the people that made it? That’s easy: gratitude.

I’m tremendously humbled and filled with appreciation by the idea

that so many people gave their time and labor for me to do
something as simple as have a comfortable place to sit. It motivates
me to appreciate the chair even more. But, even more so, I feel
connected to those people. In a significant way I feel a sense of debt
to them. I’m going to be careful to take care of this chair and not treat
it carelessly because of this.

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The truth is, everything we own, wear, eat, and consume follows this
rule. Nothing happens in a vacuum. Things we own don’t just
materialize magically out of thin air. Everything is a result of
someone’s effort or labor. We are connected to them and they are
connected to us.

A single button on my flannel shirt connects me to a seamstress in

India whose face I’ve never seen. Yet here I am, able to be warm in
winter in a very small way because of her. And she has never met the
dozens of people who had a hand in assembling the sewing machine
she used to sew the button on this shirt. Yet here she is, able to make
money for her family because of them. The sewing machine factory
workers never met the miner who mined the steel for the needle or
the workers who smelted the aluminum for the bobbin. Yet it took all
of those people and more ( factories had to be built, executives had to
hire the staff, etc.) for me to have just this one button on a shirt.

So now that you understand that every object you own took so many
people for you to own, does it change your perspective on those
things? Are you more or less likely to use them? Are you more or less
likely to toss them aside or treat them without care? Does it make

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you feel a deeper sense of gratitude, appreciation, and connection to,

well, everything?

I’m suggesting that it should. Perhaps if we all thought a little more

deeply in this way about the things we own, the resulting gratitude
for what we have would help alleviate the desire for that which we
don’t. Furthermore, perhaps if we look at all things this way, we
would consider each thing that we acquire as not only an object to
possess but also as representing a commitment to the men, women,
and (in too many cases) children who made it. We should respect
them by being careful to only acquire things we will truly love and
take good care of.

Like I said, I’m not normal. Worse, I am suggesting that you be not
normal in this way too. If enough of us are not normal in the way we
appreciate what we have, see how it connects us to the rest of the
world, and practice deep gratitude for those strangers who are
responsible, perhaps we can make it the new normal.

...

Patrick Rhone—a writer, speaker, and author of six books—lives in

Saint Paul, Minnesota, with his wife and daughter. Through his

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writing, he tells personal stories and explores ideas about living a life
of mindfulness, compassion, introspection, and truth. He says,
“Writing is how I try to make the world a better, friendlier, stronger
place.”

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The Pecan Tree (Fiction)

by Brian Gardner

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1904

Henry scuffed his feet against the dry earth, wiping sweat from his
forehead and mumbling under his breath about the torture of
working in the yard during a hot Texas summer.

But he wasn’t one to disobey his father, who had sent him out to
water the plants they’d grown from seed back in the early spring.
Because as much as Henry might have rather been in the cool
kitchen helping his mom, it was his father’s approval he was always
chasing.

Still, he thought as he dumped a pail of water onto a tiny sapling in

front of the house, What’s the point of this tree? It’s going to take years
and years before we get any shade from it. Who knows if we’ll even live
here then.

He heard footsteps behind him and turned to see his dad walking up.

“The soil still looks pretty dry,” his dad said. “Let’s get some more
water.”

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They walked together slowly, the heat and humidity too oppressive to
do anything fast.

As they poured more water onto the sapling, his dad said, “Someday
this tree will shade most of the yard.”

“But in how long, do you think?” Henry asked, unable to resist

pointing out the obvious. “And do you think we’ll even be here then?”

“We’re not doing this for us, son. We’re doing it for whoever lives here
after us—long after we’re gone. Imagine what this yard will look like
someday with a sprawling pecan tree covering it. Maybe with a family
underneath, eating a picnic in the shade on a hot summer evening
just like this one.”

Henry squinted and tried to imagine it, but all he could see was some
dried-up grass and a house that could use a coat of paint.

It was 1904, and not long ago, Dr. Pepper had been invented in their
small Texas town. Henry could imagine, on some level, how things
might change for his town in the next decade or two—new
businesses springing up, more modern equipment being used by the
farmers and ranchers… But that pale green sprout withering in the

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late summer sun? He wasn’t sure he could picture it growing into the
massive tree his dad was describing.

His dad, catching Henry’s dubious expression, clapped him on the

shoulder and said, “You just might have to take my word for it, Henry.
Someone—someday—is going to love this tree.”

Henry’s expression said he still thought it was an awful lot of work to

grow a tree that they might never get to enjoy, but he shrugged and
trudged back to the pump for one more pail of water, leaving his dad
chuckling behind him.

1951

From where the old man sat in his truck, he could see a handful of
kids darting around the yard, most of them running barefoot in the
grass as the sun sank toward the horizon behind them.

He swung his legs out of the pickup, closing the door with a gentle
thud, and followed the sound of the kids’ squeals as one cranked on
the hose and started spraying water at the others. He hung back,
partly to avoid getting doused by the steam of water flying around the

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yard and partly to pick something up off the ground, something that

had caught his eye.

He leaned down for a moment and then smiled as he stood back up

to his full height, something in his hand.

A few broken husks and inside of them…pecans.

By now, the kids had noticed him, and one—the child who seemed to
be the oldest—strutted up to him.

“Can I help you, sir?”

“My name’s Henry,” the man answered. “And I just stopped by to see
your tree.”

Without batting an eye or pausing to ask why in the world he’d be

interested in their tree, the kids jumped into action, grabbing the old
man’s hand, pulling him under the tree’s shade, and showing him
which of them could climb the highest into its branches.

“Our mom makes pecan pie every fall!” one said.

“Yeah! We help collect the nuts!” said another.

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“She makes the best pie in town,” said a third with pride in her eyes.

Henry smiled, complimented the kids on their climbing skills, and

said he was sure their mom really did make the best pie in town.
Then he bid them goodbye and ambled back to his car.

It was 1951, and the tree Henry’s dad had never given up on was now
the keeper of hundreds of childhood memories and the source of
dozens of pecan pies.

“It looks like you were right, Dad,” Henry said under his breath as he
climbed back into the truck. “It looks like you were right.”

He was grateful for the lesson. Sometimes the most generous thing
you can do is build something for someone else to enjoy—someone
you’ll never even know.

2018

It was 2018. Henry and his father had been gone a long time.

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The little Victorian-style house of Henry’s childhood was getting a

much-needed makeover. The family who now owned it had built a
wrap-around porch and had added on a room or two for their kids.

They wanted the house to keep some of its historical integrity,

though, so they scoured the greater area for red brick from the time
the house had been built, and they finally found some. It was faded
and imperfect—but exactly what they were looking for.

On this particular late-summer evening, the whole family was out in

the yard. The kids were shooting imaginary snakes with imaginary BB
guns, the mom was reading on a blanket in the shade, and the dad
was using the leftover, perfectly imperfect brick to build an outdoor
fireplace.

Above them, its branches sprawling out in all directions, towered a

full, mature pecan tree. It was the tree that pulled them outside every
evening. It sheltered them from the sun, and sometimes they even
hung out near its trunk during the middle of a summer storm—fat
raindrops falling all around them while they stayed dry under the
tree’s branches.

It was a magical spot. The parents knew this.

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In fact, it was one of the main reasons they had bought the property.
They’d wanted their kids to experience a childhood outdoors, almost
like a throwback to a much earlier decade.

They didn’t know anything about the people who had planted this
tree on a farm outside of Waco, Texas, but they knew not to take it for
granted.

“Hey, Allie,” the man called to his daughter. “Come over here for a
minute.”

Allie skipped over, a red and blue popsicle melting in her hand.

“Who do you think planted this tree?” he asked.

She looked around the yard, a bit bewildered. “I just thought it grew
here by itself.”

“Nah, if you look all around our property, and even the other
properties nearby, you won’t see any other pecan trees like this one. I
think someone planted it.”

“Huh,” she said. “It bet it took a really long time to grow this big!”

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“You’re right—I think it did! Do you think the person who planted it
thought they’d ever see it full grown?”

“Maybe not, if it would take a long time…” she answered.

“I agree,” the man said. “I think it was a gift. A gift for a family like
ours, years and years after the people who planted it moved away or
even passed on.”

Allie leaned into her dad and tossed her head back so she could take
in the whole tree.

“Well then,” she said, “I’m really glad they did.”

“Me too, Allie. Me too.”

Then the man heard the door open and looked up to see his wife
standing on the porch, keys in hand.

“I’ve got to run into town—I’ll be back in an hour. You got the kids for
a bit?”

“Sure thing, Sweetie!” he called up to her from under the tree. “We’re
not going anywhere.”

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“Okay,” she called in answer. “I’ll be back soon, Chet!”

Chet watched Jessica head for their truck, looked down at his
daughter, and then scanned the tree and the house and the other
kids running loose around him, smiling to himself in contentment
and wondering how they could pay the gift forward—the gift of the
pecan tree.

...

Brian Gardner is the founder of Simplify Your Life, a handcrafted

newsletter delivered to your inbox each week, empowering you to
create space & design your best life. He is a believer in authenticity
and living with purpose.

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From our Co-Founder, Joshua Becker

The Minimalist Home: A Room-by-Room Guide

to a Decluttered, Refocused Life

Page 95 of 96
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Colophon
Becoming Minimalist — becomingminimalist.com

Becoming Minimalist is designed to inspire others to journey

towards minimalism in life... discovering the joy of intentionally living
with less... and realizing what that means for your unique lifestyle.

No Sidebar — nosidebar.com

No Sidebar is a collaborative blog about minimalism, simple living,

and happiness. We want to help you turn down the noise that
disrupts the quiet of your heart and mind and soul.

Simplify Your Life — simplifyyourlife.com

Handcrafted newsletter delivered to your inbox each week,

empowering you to create space and design your best life.

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