Far Beyond The Stars: The Archives

This weekend, take a moment to turn something off.

Written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter.

In the modern age we think we have to constantly rush from this to that. We think we have to wake up and work every morning. We think we have to constantly respond to e-mails.

I’ve had so many interview requests to respond to about The Art of Being Minimalist, it’s humbling to know that so many people care, but overwhelming. I love doing interviews, and it’s exciting to have so much interest. But I’m tired!

I imagine your work week could have been equally as exciting and busy as mine was this last week.

That’s why I’m going to take some serious disconnect time this weekend. I’m going to pull the plug, so to speak.

I hope that you’ll join me.

Here’s a couple of great ways to disconnect:

1, Take a social network hiatus.
Don’t Tweet, Facebook, or engage with people on any social networking platform that you may use. It’s really fun to Tweet and hear all of the amazing people respond. Do you really want to spend all Sunday morning glued to Tweetdeck though? Cook someone a good breakfast instead!

2, Ignore all calls.

Don’t answer the phone at all this weekend. It doesn’t matter if it’s your mom or your boss calling, just choose not to pick up the telephone. In fact, turn it off. Go to the beach instead, if you live somewhere that’s not as cold as it is here in New York. Otherwise, maybe just grab a coffee and watch people walk by.

3, Don’t check your email.

Just let it sit there, trust me, it will be there come Monday morning. Too often we spend hours of our lives hitting the refresh button on e-mail. Take the exact opposite approach and don’t check it at all.

4, Spend a day in silence.

Just go about your day without speaking to anyone. Observe your thoughts. Read a book. Be sure to let anyone who might be offended know what you’re doing, so they don’t get mad.

5, Refuse to buy anything.

Take a break from consumerism and don’t go shopping or eat out for one day. Make sure you have enough food to prepare before you start this. Leave your credit cards and cash at home if you go out.

6, Don’t use any electricity.

Unplug all of the appliances and lights in your house (don’t do this to the fridge, your food will spoil.) Pretend you’re no-impact man for a day, and see how it is. You’ll notice that you won’t have any light after a certain hour, so either light a candle or sit in silence until it’s time for bed.

7, Don’t use transportation.

Don’t take the subway, don’t drive your car, don’t even bike. Just walk if you need to go anywhere. I love walking into Manhattan on weekends to take Yoga. It makes me appreciate my surroundings so much more. A two hour walk somewere can be very meditative.

How do you disconnect?

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There comes a moment in time for all of us when we realize the rules just don’t work anymore.

Written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter.

There is a moment when we decide we can’t handle one more trip to Target, when we can’t buy another McChicken nugget. This is the moment when we begin to accept the unconventional truth of being a minimalist.

There is also a moment when we decide we just don’t want to go to work anymore. We don’t want to continue to be a cog in the system. We want liberation, not another flat screen TV.

We all could just as easily sit back and continue to be part of the problem, that’s easy enough. Just keep buying $2 goods from China in bulk. Put them in your closet, or fill up the other side of your two-car garage. That’s what they want us to do, that is what is easy.

But we don’t to anymore, so we decide to opt out.

I imagine the similar change in mindset happened to Jay Parkinson, when he decided to revolutionize the medical industry. He could have of simply joined part of the problem after med school, but he didn’t.

I imagine the similar change came over Mike Horn when he started What Is Fresh. He could have just kept on going to C-Town, and buying wilty greens, but he didn’t. Instead he created part of the solution: a website that tracks exactly which farmer’s markets are open in the city.

Now we don’t have to remember that the only good place in New York to get locally grown food is on Wednesday is Union Square, because we can just check.

The same change came over me, when I decided to limit myself to 100 things, and adopt a 30-day rule for my stuff. When I decided to live and work from anywhere.

The same change came over you when you stumbled across this blog, whether by word of mouth, or Twitter, or a link from another brilliant blog on the internet.

You decided to start accepting the unconventional truth about the stuff that’s cluttering your life. Physical, emotional, manifestations of time best spent.

You want to change, enough is enough.

But change doesn’t happen without action. You can read about being minimalist for ages, becoming minimalist is a different story.

I have a list of people living with 100 things on Twitter. It’s very short, I wish it was longer. I know there are more people out there like us, I know there are more people who have made this unconventional leap.

I need your help to find them.

1. If you have less than 100 things, @evbogue me on Twitter and I’ll add you to this list.
2. If you don’t have 100 things, retweet this on Twitter so people who do are able to find me.
3. Follow the people on the 100 things list, because all of these people have made the leap. They are an inspiration.

The retweet button is either above or below, depending on if you’re one of the almost 1000 people (!) receiving free updates via RSS or Email, or you’re reading this directly on the blog.

Thank you for your part in this unconventional revolution. I could not do this without you.

–Everett Bogue

Written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter

Far Beyond The Stars is a series of stories about how to achieve freedom. That much needs to be clear. When I write these stories, the immediate product may be a clean kitchen counter or an uncluttered schedule; the ultimate goal is a life where none of that matters anymore.

I believe were at a moment in time when we are poised to make a huge change in the way we humans inhabit our lives and our world.

We are on the verge of reclaiming our nomadic heritage.

After hundreds of years of having to settle, forced to rely on agriculture to sustain ourselves and then made to work in factories, we’re finally coming into an age where none of that matters anymore.

We can live anywhere, work from anywhere, and do whatever we like. We’ve broken mass media’s hold on our decisions, our idea production — any of us can start creating with a reasonable expectation that we will be able make a living from our passion.

This is what Timothy Ferriss wrote about in the 4 hour work week.

This is what Seth Godin wrote about in Tribes.

I’m living this life right now, and from what I’ve seen so far of the flexibility and the possibility for growth, it’s pretty awesome.

Chris Guillebeau is living this life

Tammy Strobel is living this life

Colin Wright is living this life

And countless others, too many to name.

You can live this life too.

Now, I’m not saying that everyone needs to pick up their roots and become a location independant worker or digital vagabond. That’s certainly not a requirement. That’s one end in this path to liberation, and it just happens to be my goal.

Your goals may be complete different, but the philosophy applies to everything. When we make the changes in our lives, when we summon the courage to break free of the chains of the material world, we can do anything.

Happy new year everyone.

I’d love to hear what your plans are for the new decade. Let us know in the comments, drop me an email, or find me on Twitter.

Thank you so much for being a part of this revolution.

Written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter

I know how hard it can be to make the decision to give up material possessions.

There is always this little voice in the back of your head saying ‘I might need this someday!’

I had to give up a couple of things, when I was reducing the stuff I owned to less than 100 things when I moved to Portland earlier this year.

That little voice has a point, everything ‘could’ be useful someday. However, I’ve known people with rooms filled with stuff that they ‘could use someday’, but they never do.

Do you have rooms like this? Most of us have a closet like this, some of us have a box like this.

The problem with this mentality is that when you save everything ‘just in case’ these objects end up gradually taking more and more time away from you.

When you continue to gather stuff that you’re not using in this moment, you end up spending time cleaning, sorting, and organizing. I’ve known people who spend every free hour of their life, when they’re not eating or working, sorting through stuff they ‘might use someday.’

If you are living like this I really believe you should take action to change your life situation around now.

Some people can even convince themselves that this daily organizational duty is not a burden. I can understand that view, possessions can have a powerful control over the mind. You’ve invested your money these things, you’ve invested your time in creating a wonderful world for your things to live in. It’s only natural for a feeling of obligation to your things to spring up in your mind.

You have to fight it that sense of obligation to your things. Don’t be a prisoner to your possessions.

The time to make a change and overcome your slavery to the material world is now.

Here are a few simple methods that I’ve developed for people to learn to say goodbye to the objects that they love, but don’t use anymore.

1. Create an outbox. The simplest and easiest way to start a healthy habit towards your stuff is to create an outbox. Find a cardboard box and place it near a junk problem area. Just place one object after another into the box. Let the box sit for a month (or a week, but sometimes that can be painful.) Did you need to go back for any of the objects? Well, you probably don’t really need them. You can apply this outbox philosophy to any of the methods below.
2. Get a second opinion. Sometimes it can help to get a friend to give a second opinion. Make sure this is someone who can impartial, someone who is not family or a significant other. Ask them to give you an honest opinion as you are sorting through your stuff. Ask them questions like ‘do you think this object is useful to me?’ and ‘do you think I will use this object in the next year?’ or ‘Do you think this old ratty lamp I’ve been saving since 1979 looks cool?’ This impartial person will give you an honest opinion, and this can give you the perspective you need to make the decision to free yourself of your belongings.
3. Observe how much time you spend with your possessions. Start a notebook and record every interaction you have maintaining your stuff for one week. Do this with everything, even when you take an overflowing bag of old knitting supplies you haven’t used since second grade off of a chair and place it on the floor. That counts. After a week tally up the result. If this result is 10 hours, that’s 520 hours you will spend this year organizing your crap. That’s 5,200 hours over the next 10 years. Think about how much money you could earn in 5,200 hours of not sorting your stuff, or how much time you could spend at the beach.
4. Have someone get rid of them for you. Sometimes it might be easier just to not have to watch. Hire an impartial person (this is no job that should go unpaid…) to go through your stuff and make a series of boxes which contain your stuff. Place these boxes in a closet for one month. During that month make a list of things you think are in the boxes, and need for whatever reason. At the end of the month you are allowed to retrieve the items that you knew were in there, the rest have to go. You’ll be surprised just how much stuff you forgot was in the boxes, and hopefully this will help to break your bond with them.
5. Declare bankruptcy in the material world. Sometimes it’s all just too much. Pack a bag of 100 things, and just leave. Go to Costa Rica and sit on a beach for a month, it will do you some good. While you’re gone, arrange for someone to have an estate sale for you — give them a percentage of the sale. The rest of the proceeds can go towards your trip to Costa Rica.
6. Give them to someone who can use them. It can help, both you and other people, if you give your stuff to a place that will use them to help people in need. In some cities you can arrange for the Salvation Army or other object-oriented charity to drop by your house with a truck and load up all of your stuff for you.
7. Spend a significant amount of time away. Make yourself so busy for a month that you don’t have time to sort your stuff. You will see just how much attention they take from you. Your bedroom or house will fall into disrepair in this month. It’ll be really gross, people will think you’re insane. But by the end of the month you’ll recognize just how of your life your stuff is taking from you.
8. Set a goal that you can’t achieve without being free. You probably have some dream that you want to achieve that is being made inconceivably expensive by your stuff. Say you wanted to study aboard in France for the summer? If you have lots of stuff, you’ll have to keep paying for your apartment, and an apartment in France. This makes studying impossible, because you’ll not be able to earn money to pay for your apartment full of stuff while you’re studying. Set a goal that’s impossible to achieve without get rid of your stuff. This will give you the incentive to become free.

Your stuff is probably a prison, and in many cases it’s not your friend.

It’s keeping you from achieving real change in your life, and the time to take action is now.

Don’t wait, now is the time to make a change in your life. You can achieve minimalist freedom. You can live with 100 things.

This future is possible, but only you can make it a reality.

“The things you own end up owning you.” – Tyler Durden

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Consider following me on Twitter.

Written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter

Many people I meet have a story about someone they know who failed.

People love to tell me these stories.

Maybe you’ve heard them too?

There’s the one about the girl who moved across the country and couldn’t find a job and ‘now it’s so hard for her’.

Or that one boy who decided he was going to be a musician and went to New York and he works retail and ‘it’s so hard for him’.

Everyone knows someone like this. They keep this person’s story ready to go, and take aim at your dreams with him or her as evidence. ‘Look at this person, they couldn’t do it, you can’t either’.

Then there’s the story about some mythical creature that ‘puts in the long hours for their company, and now they’re set for life.’

No one seems to know anyone like this, and yet they’re all so sure this is a reality.

Where are these ‘set for life’ people? I want to meet one please. Have one of them send me a post card.

Everyone I know who is doing well right now has their own established remarkable reputation.

The most common variety of person I encounter is settled for life. They gave up long ago, and now they drag out that story every time I tell them I’m moving again to pre-prove that I can’t do it …again.

Here’s my view of reality: you can do anything you want to, as long as you’re willing to sacrifice your ability to undermine yourself.

There are no failures, only the people who choose to use other brave people as defense against their own settled mediocrity.

Don’t listen to anyone’s fail stories. They just keep them in their back pocket to defend their decision to be scared, to stay put, to not change.

You can move anywhere and do anything if you’re willing to trade secure normality for knowing that you’re doing something awesome.

Where are you going next year?

Written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter

Being minimalist is having the flexibility to do what you want, when you wish to do it.

Think about it, if you wanted to, could you do these things:

• Can you fly to Peru next Friday?
• Can you start your own company in a month?
• Can you relocate to Vancouver next week?
• If you lost your job, would it be devastating?

I don’t believe you should just be minimalist for the sake of being minimalist. The philosophy has to have another reason, and it’s important to write that down.

Think of something impossible, an objective that you’ve always wanted to achieve, but that everyone told you was impractical. Make that your goal for next year.

Write that goal down.

When I quit my job and flew to Portland Oregon in August, it was easy, because I could carry all of my stuff. I lived a sustainable life, so surviving on $3,000 for three months wasn’t a problem while I worked my freelance contacts online.

Many people are trapped in their own lives by their stuff. But the reality is, we don’t need any of it anymore.

Despite what they might tell you on television news, we live in an age of abundance.

You can have everything you ever wanted, it’s down at the corner store. It’s important to recognize that you can have everything that you want, but if you limit yourself to the essentials you will open a world of possibilities for yourself. You can live anywhere, you can work in anywhere.

It doesn’t matter who you are, the possibilities are open if you get rid of the physical, mental, and emotional stuff.

You can be free. You can do the impossible.

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Here’s my ‘impossible’ goal for next year:

I want make Far Beyond The Stars my primary source of income. A handful of people have told me this is impossible, but I don’t believe that is true now. Leo Babauta has done this, Chris Guillebeau has done this. Many others make $60,000-$100,000 a year off their blogs.

I’m aiming for a more modest $30,000. That’s a little more than I need to survive, with those extra dollars I’ll buy my girlfriend a birthday present.

I’m going to keep writing posts that help people. I want to continue to teach people how to simplify their lives and be happier.

How can you help me do this? Share my stories with a few friends. If you enjoy an article, there is a ‘share’ option at the bottom of the post. Post my story to Twitter, Facebook, or email it to a couple of folks. This is so easy, it takes 10 seconds, and it’s the only way that my articles reach new people.

Only share my post if you enjoyed it, only do this if you think they will enjoy reading it too.

It also helps if you sign up to receive free updates via RSS or email.

I created a support page, which has a donate button on it. If you ever feel like my words are bringing value to your life, if they help in any way, consider giving a small amount.

If only a handful of people give a small amount this year, my goal is no longer an impossibility.

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What impossible goals will you set for yourself next year? How will you achieve them?

Interview by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter

Every week on Far Beyond The Stars I interview an important person on the subject of being minimalist. Last week I spoke to Colin Wright about what you take with you when you work from anywhere. Next week I’ll be speaking with Chris Baskind of More Minimal.

I spoke with the minimalist legend Leo Babauta. For those who don’t know him, Leo writes the top-100 blog Zen Habits and has another smaller blog called Mnmlist. He’s the author of a slew of books on living a simple minimalist existence, including his e-book A Simple Guide to a Minimalist Life, and his print book The Power of Less: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential…in Business and in Life.

We spoke about doing less of the unimportant, the illusion of control over life, and a few ways you can be more minimalist today.

I’ve decided to release this interview under an uncopyright license. This interview is copyright free, which means that you can distribute, republish, source from, even profit from this article without any permission from me. If you enjoyed this interview, please share it with as many people as you can. There’s no need to link back, but I’d love it if you could.

On to the interview!

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Everett Bogue: When you first started on your journey towards becoming minimalist what was the most profound change that you made in your life?

Leo Babauta: It was the realization that all the crap in my life that I’d been buying and building up and treasuring … just wasn’t worth it. It’s the stuff that’s advertised and hyped, that we think makes us happy, but that really doesn’t. I’ve learned that I don’t need any of that — all I need are a few essentials, and the time to do things that I love doing, to spend with the people I love most.

Everett: Do you have any current goals that you’ve set for yourself in regards to living a more minimalist life?

Leo: No. I no longer focus on goals — I think people are too focused on destinations and not on the journey itself. That doesn’t mean I don’t try to do anything important — it just means I’m focused on doing something important right now, something I love doing and that excites me.

That will lead to something amazing, I’m sure, but what it leads to, I have no idea. There’s actually no way to know … the idea that we can control the outcome is an illusion. We cannot predict or control the future, so I’ve given up trying.

However … to answer the question fully … minimalism for me is a learning process, and I’m continually realizing that I don’t need things I thought I needed. For example, when I move to San Francisco in June 2010, I plan to go carless, because I really don’t think a car is necessary or desirable. (Note: I now live on Guam, where I walk and bike to most places but it’s much harder to go places with kids without good public transit, which Guam lacks.)

I don’t think I’ll ever stop learning about minimalism, or get to the point where I’ve perfected it.

Everett: Occasionally I’ll tell someone that I’m striving to be minimalist and they’ll say something like “Isn’t that boring? How do you stay busy and entertain yourself?” Assuming you’re talking to a stranger, how would you answer that question?

Leo: Minimalism isn’t about having or doing nothing — it’s about making room in your life for the things you love doing the most. In this way, by getting rid of all the clutter in our lives — physical clutter and commitments — we are freeing ourselves, so that we can focus on what truly matters, and not all the extra crap that people tend to do and have for no good reason.

Everett: I believe one of the fundamental aspects of being a minimalist is working less, and on more important projects. I know that you’ve had some experience pursuing this goal for yourself. What choices and changes have you made in your life towards this goal?

Leo: It hasn’t exactly been a goal, but more something that I’ve learned to do better with time. I try to focus on one (or two at the most) projects at a time, so that I can really pour myself into it. I’ve changed my life and my work so that I can do things I really love doing, and not a bunch of other work that I hate. When I find myself being distracted or consumed by unimportant stuff, I stop and question this and change my routine so that I can focus on what’s important.

I’m getting better at all of this but am by no means perfect. Again, I don’t think I’ll ever stop learning.

Everett: Can you recommend one simple way that our readers can start to cultivate a minimalist work schedule?

Leo: Start each day by asking yourself: what’s the most important thing I can do today, that will have the biggest impact on my life? Do this first, before you do email or meetings or read stuff online or Twitter or anything else. Only when you’re done should you consider other things.

Slowly reduce the number of things you do each day, but make each one count more.

Everett: You have a post on Mnmlist titled “On Owning Nothing” which imagines a minimalist society which revolves around shared resources and starts to move away from the idea of private property. If you could recommend one simple step that our reader’s could take to start making this world happen, what would it be?

Leo: There are millions of things, but a good start would be to participate in some kind of shared service — car sharing is available in many places, for example, as are ways to lend and borrow things like books or bicycles or CDs or what have you. Freecycle.org is a good way to give away stuff you don’t need and find free stuff you do.

Over the longer term, I think we should start getting together, informally, to talk about and organize associations that allow us to share things as a group rather than horde them individually. This could apply to housing, food, computers, clothing, work, and more. And these associations should be free (as in not restrictive), democratic (with no authoritarian control). Cooperatives are a good example.

Everett: In your explorations of being minimalist, have you encountered any unexpected benefits that you didn’t initially imagine?

Leo: It’s truly liberating. I can’t even begin to describe how freeing it is to finally get rid of stuff, to break free from the dependence on stuff, to get away from having to do everything and be everything and buy everything. It’s an exhilarating feeling, really, and I never would have imagined it to be so until I gave it a try. I hope anyone reading this experiences some of that liberation.

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Again, this interview has been released under an Uncopyright license. Share it as much as you want, however you want –there are a few good options on the share button below.

If you found this helpful, please consider signing up for free updates via RSS or Email. You can also follow @evbogue on Twitter.

Written by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter

Uh oh, it’s almost Black Friday.

Hopefully the idea of running out to consume, after you’ve consumed all of that turkey, gives the shudders. It certainly gives them to me. The idea of people cramming half-off things into shopping cards actually makes me want to lock myself in the cellar and reemerge after the holidays are over.

Nothing is sadder than running around a store frantically trying to buy useless things at a discount, then pawning them off on some poor friend or family member who has to deal with that object until they can safely throw it away without you noticing.

Stop buying stupid stuff, especially for other people. Please!

The whole idea behind Christmas, or whatever holiday you celebrate is giving right? Let’s take a moment to think about what giving actually means.

You can give by:

• Helping someone live a better life.
• Making someone smile.
• Helping someone achieve something.
• Making someone feel good.
• Giving someone an opportunity that they would otherwise have.

Nowhere that definition can I see ‘giving is another useless plastic object they can put in the closet.’

Most of us have everything that we will ever need already. I only have 97 things, and I still think that’s way too much. I don’t need anything else.

To be honest, if I received anything that I couldn’t immediately benefit me every single day of the year, I’d ask that the person who gave it to me to return it.

I challenge you to give a gift that actually means something to every person you know this Christmas.

Five minimalist Christmas gifts:

1. Dinner. I love cooking for people, this is a great way to show to someone that you appreciate them. One way to do this is to give someone a small card inviting them to dinner. If you’re a terrible cook, take them out for dinner.
2. Wine. You can share it and it makes you tipsy. Not Yellowtail or Two Buck Chuck. Good wine, the kind that comes in a bottle and costs a little more than average. A good place to start is a bottle that you’ve personally enjoyed.
3. Knowledge. Buy someone a book that they may read, but MAKE SURE it’s a good one. There are a lot of crappy books out there, and no one wants a book from the sale rack. Stick with the bestseller lists, or books that you’ve personally learned a great deal from. If this confuses you, a gift card to a bookstore will do.
4. Money. It’s usable for a lot of things, such as paying down student loan debt or buying groceries.
5. Opportunities. Get someone an interview somewhere. Give them a recommendation. Expose a person to the right environment or ideas.

Think about it, and look at that list again. You want all of those things, don’t you? Maybe not the Wine, but you can supplement that with a fine beverage that suits you or chocolate.

If you give plastic crap you will get plastic crap.

If you give what you want, you will get what you want.

It’s really that simple.

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If you want to, send this story to everyone on your Christmas card list. I promise you will get three more bottles of wine than you did last Christmas.

Writing and photography by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter

I spoke with a person recently who described themselves as ‘definitely-not-minimalist’ about how overwhelming it is to combat a world that is constantly calling on her to buy more and more.

She asked me how she could to stop the cycle of consumerism in her own life.

She was a person who have been accumulating stuff an incredibly long time. She was born in a generation that was defined by consumption and perpetuated by the prices of items falling at an incredible rate.

She bought into one of the great American dreams.

Success was stuff, America defined it. But all of that has changed, the internet has transformed our society into one that is fueled on information and ideas. We can work from anywhere, if we let ourselves see that.

Past the basic essentials that you need to live, most of the stuff we filled our lives with doesn’t matter anymore.

What people don’t realize, when they’re on a ten or fifteen year long consumption binge is just how difficult it is to dig yourself out from the weight of all of this stuff.

They want to get out, they want to be free, but it’s overwhelming.

We can all understand this position. We all know people who’ve been there are going there. We might have been there ourselves.

So, how to take the first steps toward a minimalist existence, if you don’t know how to begin?

Liberate yourself from the overwhelming weight of your useless possessions.

I firmly believe that you can’t get over stuff until you have a mindset change. Chances are if you’re reading this, you’re there already. How do you get to this realization?

The first small choice you can make is to start to comprehend how much stuff costs you.

1. It costs money to store stuff you’re not using. More stuff means a bigger house, if you have so much stuff you can’t fit in your house, then it means storing it. Bigger houses cost money, storing stuff costs money. Maybe take a moment and calculate how much you’re spending on your house and storage, paste this number on your wall. I guarantee it will scare you.
2. Material possessions restrict your freedom. If you wanted to move, could you? How much would it cost to move? Think about it, if you have one box of stuff, you could move whenever you wanted. If you got bored of Cincinnati, you could be in Denver in no time. Just pack a bag.
3. Stuff takes up your time. It takes time to sort through stuff, and the more clutter you have the harder it is to find things. This leads to more time being wasted. If time is money, then your stuff is putting you into massive debt. By erasing your ties to your stuff, it’s like your paying off a massive loan that you didn’t even know you had.

Think about it, if you had nothing but the essentials:

• You would have endless more time to do what you’re interested in.
• You would have so much more money to achieve your dreams.
• You would have the freedom to move about whenever you want.

Do you think this unobtainable? It’s not.

I live this life, I have a backpack of stuff that I use every day. I come and go as I please. My life costs nothing besides food and housing wherever I live, the rest of the money I save. I work on the internet, I could be anywhere. Most of all: I’m happy. It’s ultimate freedom, and most importantly, it’s possible for you too.

This is how you start to free yourself:

One thing at a time.

The first step: stop buying things.

If you find yourself contemplating buying something that’s not essential, take a breath, think about how much it actually costs. Walk away.

To begin decluttering: every day, just take one object and figure out what to do with it. Recycle it, donate it, throw it out. If you feel like you can do two, do it. If you feel like you can throw out a box of stuff, go for it.

This will accelerate into a cascading effect. When you realize just how important it is to live a free and enjoyable life without having to worry about possession overload, nothing can stop you.

The next step: Give it all away.

There are so many people in the world that need the things that you’re using now. They might only have money for food to feed their children. They might not have the education that you do, or the opportunities that you had. Give the stuff you these people. Donate it to a charitable organization, or put it up for free on Craigslist or Freecycle. Someone, somewhere will appreciate your stuff. It might even be useful to them.

The important part is to recognize that you don’t need it anymore, and then find the quickest way to get it all out of your life.

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What methods do you use to reduce your clutter, to clean out your life? Leave it in the comments!

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Far Beyond The Stars is a very new site, and I never imagined by this point we would have had over 6000 visitors and over 200 subscribers. Wow! It’s so exhilarating to see the traffic climb.

I’d love if more people found out about the site. If you enjoyed what you read here, I’d love it if you could share this with one friend or tweet this story. It’d make a world of difference, and I’d be eternally grateful.

Written and photographed by Everett Bogue | Follow me on Twitter

My minimalist roommate Anika just exclaimed “This life we lead is good, isn’t it?” It is, I say. She’s been living out of a backpack for awhile now, traveling from here to there, you’ll hear about her adventures and advice on Friday when she’ll be guest posting here. Tammy from Rowdy Kittens will be guest posting here on Thursday, which I’m incredibly excited about. Maybe subscribe to the RSS feed, so you don’t miss their posts!

I’ll be in Seattle for the end of the weekend with my girlfriend who’s visiting from NY, we’re seeing what that city is all about. If you know the area, let me know what to check out while we’re there.

How I made the decision to liberate myself.

I’ve always had very few possessions, but being a minimalist isn’t just about what you carry with you. It’s your entire engagement with the world. I spent the last three years in New York living with very few possessions, but I admittedly did spend a lot of money. New York is like that, it sucks you in and spits you out without your wallet.

There’s a moment when everything changes, when you can’t turn back.

I think there was a tipping point, when I figured out just how rewarding this life would be. Living day to day, place to place, consuming the minimum, existing a little bit on the fringes. Watching the busy people running around frantically trying to support their overextended lifestyles, smiling, and then going back home and writing a little. Trying to help spread a little more knowledge about where I’ve been, where you can go.

I think the moment when I couldn’t go back came when I started meeting people who were living this way, at the minimum, traveling from here and there making their living doing new and exciting things. I saw how they could get by with little, and I started to realize that I didn’t need to be making as much money (and spending as much money) as I was in New York. I hope by writing this I can help a few more people achieve this state of being.

I gradually began to stop consuming and started living.

Minimalism is like the secret room that no one wants you to know about, and how peaceful it is. We’re all bombarded by advertising every day, claiming that we need one more thing, that we’ll be happier if we just buy more. It’s not hard to understand how we’re conditioned to want to spend, but it’s hard reversing the work of (rough estimation) hundreds of billions of dollars of corporate spending to make us want just one more thing.

The rewards are infinite though. Freedom can’t be bought, it can only be found.

It’s sitting right here, you’ve just got to slowly work your way backwards from the grand buildup of possessions and spending and join us on the minimalist path.