It's a minimalist Monday edition of Optimal Living Daily. Life is an acquired taste and resolving to learn from failure. Both by Joshua Fields Milburn of TheMinimalist.com and I'm just a molecule narrator. Sometimes I share two articles in one episode that's the case today so let's get right to them and continue optimizing your life.
Life is an acquired taste by Joshua Fields Milburn of TheMinimalist.com The best coffee house in the United States isn't located in Seattle, Portland, New York City or any of the usual suspects. Press coffee bars nestled between a parking lot and a sewing shop across the street from a pair of abandoned warehouses and beneath several stories of old brick apartments in Dayton, Ohio. The birthplace of aviation, the cash register and hundreds of gold rims. I was sitting impressed recently tucked in the back enjoying a black coffee.
A subtle milieu of roasted beans and Radiohead's OK computer in the atmosphere around me. Back in Dayton for a spell I was spending a lot of time there dotting the I's and crossing the T's in our most recent book Everything That Remains. The shop's tattooed proprietors Brett and Janelle Barker were as usual hard at work behind the counter. The Barkers, the husband and wife duo, are wonderful in more ways than one.
Friendly, attentive, passionate and sticklers for detail. From the wood floors and wood paneled walls to the music and changed monthly local art installations, everything at press is carefully and intentionally curated. Not to mention a handful of employees, Caleb, Ani, Brendan, Eric, who feel much more like family than staff and customers who seem to embody a cheers-esque camaraderie. Then there's the coffee of course sourced from only the best roasters and brewed or pulled so carefully, so meticulously, it resembles art much more than food service, all of which culminates in the perfect coffeehouse.
Elegant, unpretentious, simple. The simplicity of press transcends the shop itself. Not simple for the sake of being simple, press is simple because they've eliminated the excess in favor of the essential. It was Brett, after all, who convinced me to do the same with my coffee.
I used to load my cup of joe with heaps of cream and sweetener until it was more of a weak, milky, calorie-laden dessert than a drink. As I stirred in the excess, Brett would quietly rid me, encouraging me to enjoy the flavor without the additives. I didn't listen, not at first at least, not until the day when they ran out of my sweetener of choice and I was forced to go without. It was an unpleasant shock at first, drinking only coffee and cream, but soon my taste buds adjusted.
I could better taste the coffee and I went without sweetener from then on. A month later, being the experimenter I am, I wonder what my coffee would taste like without milk, so I ordered an Americano and shook my head when Janelle asked whether I wanted room for cream. Being unacclimated, the first sip was bitter, a strong punch to the palate. Few days in, I acquired the taste, but for the first time in my life, I could taste the actual coffee.
It was more delicious than any of the sugary, weak, milky cups of yesteryear, and I never went back. Black coffee is a synecdoche for life. When you limit the excess, when you deliberately avoid life's empty calories, what remains is exponentially more delicious, more enjoyable, more worthwhile. It might be a bitter shock at first, but much like coffee, a meaningful life is an acquired taste.
Sip slowly and enjoy. Resolving to learn from failure by Joshua Fields Milburn of TheMimList.com I failed last year, but lots. I failed more times than I can count. No matter how often I fail, failure is always sharp and cutting.
It never feels good. I made my first ever New Year's resolution at the beginning of 2011. I resolved to not purchase anything for an entire year. A lofty resolution.
Two months after making my resolution, my thought process regarding buying stuff had changed significantly. At first when I wanted to purchase an item, I would think, hey look, that thing looks cool. I think I'll buy it. But eventually, I was forced to face the fact I couldn't buy those things.
And by the end of the fourth month, something beautiful had happened. I no longer wanted to buy new things. My entire thought process regarding impulse consumption had changed. I had accidentally reprogrammed myself.
My resolution was to prove I didn't need to buy stuff for a year, but I learned I could actually change myself in the process. After four months, I no longer wanted to buy material items on impulse. The persistent desire to consume was gone. It was and is a phenomenal feeling.
And then six months into the experiment, something unfortunate happened. I spilled tea all over my computer. I put power on. It was ruined.
Thankfully, my first thought was not, I guess I'll go buy another computer. Instead, my first thought was, how can I live without this item? I want the next several weeks without a computer. I wrote essays longhand on yellow legal pads.
I wrote fiction by hand, and it looked like the musings of a madman. I accessed the internet at libraries at friends' houses, anywhere except my tea-soaked MacBook. After a few weeks, Ryan offered to give me a new laptop for my 30th birthday, an offer I turned down because I felt it was cheating. So I soldered on computerless for several more weeks.
Eventually, I realized I was less productive without my computer. I was writing less. I wasn't enjoying writing as much. I didn't feel as good about what I was writing.
I realized I was depriving myself of an essential tool. For me, minimalism has never been about deprivation. Rather, minimalism is about getting rid of life's excess in favor of the essential. For me, a computer was essential, so I got a new one.
And throughout the rest of the year, I purchased a few other tools I needed as well. But I never returned to the impulse-driven consumption of my past. I was reprogrammed. I'll be forever changed by the experience of not buying stuff impulsively this year.
I strongly recommend not buying anything for the next four months. See what it does for your impulses. At the end of the day, my experiment was by definition a failure. But it was a beautiful failure that provided invaluable feedback and insight that I'm thankful for.
This year's resolution? Well, I don't have any goals, but I plan to continue to learn from my failures. You just listened to the post titled Life is an Acquired Taste and Resolving to Learn from Failure, both by Joshua Fields Milburn of TheMinimalist.com. I'll be right back with my commentary.
Thank you, Joshua. I thought these two went together pretty nicely. The first one uses black coffee as a metaphor, basically saying that a meaningful life is an acquired taste. You strip away the excess, and at first it might feel like something's missing, but eventually what you're left with is actually better.
And then the second article pretty much shows that with his story. It's interesting that he set out to prove he could go a year without buying anything, and then technically he failed, but what actually happened is he stopped wanting to buy stuff on impulse, and I think that's a much bigger win than actually completing the original goal. That's also pretty much the point of habits and practices like this, right? You don't always get the exact outcome you're going for, but the process itself can do something to you over time.
That's actually why I think this daily podcast works the way it does for a lot of people. It's not one episode that changes anything. It's the consistent exposure, the small daily push in the right direction. And after a while, something shifts.
Hopefully that's the case for you. It definitely is for me. With that, thank you for being here. An extra thank you if you've ever shared the show with someone else.
Have a wonderful rest of your day, and I'll see you tomorrow where your optimal life awaits.