On Happiness by Joshua Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus Happiness is an expansive

concept, it goes without saying. At its fundament, the term happiness is abstract
and abstruse and can be a mind-numbing, migraine-inducing thing to try to explain
with words. But it was this complex ideathe thought of being truly happythat led
us to live simpler lives. Happiness was at the precipice of our journey. It was
happiness that led us to minimalism. Eventually. But lets rewind. Before we
discovered the concepts of minimalism, and before we understood the importance
of simplifying our lives, we were successful young professionals from Dayton, Ohio.
But we were only ostensibly successful. You see, back then people saw two best
friends with their large homes with more bedrooms than inhabitants. They were
envious. They saw our six-figure jobs, our luxury cars, our new gadgets, and our life
of opulence, and they thought, These guys have it figured out. I want to be just like
them. They saw all of those thingsall of that superfluous stuffand they just knew
that we were successful. After all, we were living the American Dream, werent we?
But the truth is that we werent successful at all. Maybe we looked successful
displaying our status symbols as if they were trophiesbut we werent truly
successful. 21 Joshua Millburn | Ryan Nicodemus Because even with all of our stuff,
we knew that we were not satisfied with our lives. We knew that we were not happy.
And we discovered that working 70 to 80 hours per week and buying even more
stuff didnt fill the void. In fact, it only brought us more debt and more anxiety and
more fear and more loneliness and more guilt and more overwhelm and more
paranoia and more depression. It was a very solipsistic existence. Whats worse, we
found out that we didnt have control of our own time and thus didnt control our
own lives. And then, as our lives were spiraling downward in ever-diminishing circles
towards empty oblivion, we inadvertently discovered minimalism. Or perhaps it
discovered us, as it were. It was a beacon in the night. We lingered curiously on the
limbic portions of minimalisms perimeter, scouring feverishly through Internet page
after Internet page looking for more information and guidance and enlightenment,
watching and learning and trying to understand what this whole minimalism thing
was all about. Through months of research we traveled farther and farther down the
rabbit hole, and over time we had discovered a group people without a lot of things
but with myriad happiness and passion and freedom, things for which we
desperately yearned. Eventually we embraced these conceptsthe concepts of
minimalism and simplicityas a way of life and discovered that we too could be
happy, but it wasnt through owning more stuff, it wasnt through accumulation. We
took back control of our lives so we could focus on whats important, so we could
focus on lifes deeper meaning. Happiness, as far as we are concerned, is achieved
through living a meaningful life, a life that is filled with passion and freedom, a life
in which we can grow as