The best of The Minimalists. 

This book by Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus collects the most relevant essays—some short, some long—from their popular website, TheMinimalists.com. This collection has been edited and organized to create an experience that's considerably different from reading individual selections online. From simple living, decluttering, and finances, to passion, health, and relationships, Essential is for anyone who desires a more intentional life.

Minimalism is the thing that gets us past the things so we can make room for life's most important things—which actually aren't things at all.

At age 30, best friends Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus walked away from their six-figure corporate careers, jettisoned most of their material possessions, and started focusing on what's truly important.

In their debut book, Joshua & Ryan, authors of the popular website The Minimalists, explore their troubled pasts and descent into depression. Though they had achieved the American Dream, they worked ridiculous hours, wastefully spent money, and lived paycheck to paycheck. Instead of discovering their passions, they pacified themselves with ephemeral indulgences—which only led to more debt, depression, and discontent.

After a pair of life-changing events, Joshua & Ryan discovered minimalism, allowing them to eliminate their excess material things so they could focus on life's most important "things": health, relationships, passion, growth, and contribution.

People don't know how to love the ones they love until they disappear from their lives. 

As he approaches thirty, Jody Grafton's career as a singer-songwriter falls apart: he loses his record deal, his money, his fame--even his desire to create new music. While he stares at the rubble of his one-hit-wonder musical career, his mother is diagnosed with lung cancer, his marriage ends abruptly, and Jody starts drinking heavily to deaden his new reality.

When he hasn't a single reason left to live, he attempts suicide and ends up in a psych ward where he's prodded with questions he isn't yet prepared to answer. Amid the tailspin, Jody receives a phone call from his recently estranged girlfriend and she has unexpected news: she's pregnant.

As a Decade Fades begins with this phone call. As his twenties twilight, Jody Grafton grapples with loneliness, depression, lust, and infatuation while glancing at the mounting wreckage in his rearview. When he can't fit--or force--the pieces of his life back together, he leaves his native Ohio to search for answers in the most unlikely of places.

There is wreckage in the rearview. Jody Grafton's world is crumbling around him.

To get away from it all, Jody moves from his native Ohio to Brooklyn to sort through the rubble of his self-indulgent twenties. His marriage is over. His new girlfriend is pregnant. And his career as a pseudo-famous singer-songwriter has fallen apart: gone is his record deal, his money, his fame--even his desire to create new music. While he stares at the ruins of his musical career, his mother becomes ill, and Jody starts drinking heavily to deaden his new reality. After months of struggle, he attempts to put the pieces of his life back together the only way he knows how: through music.

DAYS AFTER THE CRASH, by Joshua Fields Millburn, is a short, five-chapter novella about a troubled man struggling to reconcile the demons of his past. To fade the scars of the last decade, Jody must face his self-inflicted wounds head-on if he plans to discover a brighter future on the horizon. But does he have the strength to piece his life back together?

What does it mean to be human? How does a person find meaning in his or her life when everything's falling apart? 

Falling While Sitting Down is a short story collection about dealing with loneliness and discontent while balancing hope and despair. Ultimately, this book's stories deal with finding meaning in a seemingly meaningless world.

The first four stories in this collection, written by Joshua Fields Millburn, discuss the struggles we face as we attempt to discover the meaning of our lives.

"It's All So Quiet in Brooklyn," this collection's longest piece, follows a young but aging musician as he approaches thirty and finds himself coping with loneliness and depression in the aftermath of several life-changing events. He feels utterly alone, so he leaves Ohio to search for meaning in the most unlikely place: Bed-Stuy Brooklyn.

"A Radically Attenuated History of Generation X" is, as the title suggests, an incredibly short story that attempts to summarize a particular ethos for an entire generation through the eyes of two characters on a dinner date.

The title story, "Falling While Sitting Down," follows an unnamed boy through eighteen years of growing up in an extraordinarily dysfunctional family, showing the emotional muscles it takes to survive such circumstances.

The collection's final story, "Loneliest Man," considers the loneliness and real-life costs of poor relationship decisions from the point of view of a particularly troubled man.

As a bonus, three talented young writers--Colin Wright, Chase Night, and Mark D. Robertson--contributed to this collection, expanding the narrative beyond the scope of Joshua Fields Millburn's four stories.

The seven stories in this collection vary drastically, but they all share one thing in common: each story is about what it's like to be a human being during incredibly complex times.

How can I know something? How can I convince someone of the rightness of my position? How does reality function? What is artistic creativity? What is the role of the state? It is well known that people from various cultures give dissimilar answers to such philosophical questions. After three decades in the cross-cultural study of ideas and values, Thomas Kasulis found that culture influences not only the answers to these questions, but often how one arrives at the answers. In generalizing cultural difference, Kasulis identifies two kinds of orientation: intimacy and integrity. Both determine how we think about relations among people and among things, and each is reasonable, effective, and consistent. Yet the two are so incompatible in their basic assumptions that they cannot successfully engage each other.

Cultural difference extends beyond nations. Cultural identities crystallize in relation to religion, occupation, race, gender, class. Rather than attempt to transcend cultural difference, Kasulis urges a deeper awareness of its roots by moving beyond mere cultural relativism toward a cultural bi-orientationality that will allow us to adapt ourselves to different cultural contexts as the situation demands.

Wonderfully clear and unburdened by jargon, Intimacy or Integrity is accessible to readers from a variety of perspectives and backgrounds. By analyzing the synergy between thought and culture, it increases our understanding of cultural difference and guides us in developing strategies for dealing with orientations different from our own.

Minimalism is the thing that gets us past the things so we can make room for life's most important things—which actually aren't things at all.

At age 30, best friends Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus walked away from their six-figure corporate careers, jettisoned most of their material possessions, and started focusing on what's truly important.

In their debut book, Joshua & Ryan, authors of the popular website The Minimalists, explore their troubled pasts and descent into depression. Though they had achieved the American Dream, they worked ridiculous hours, wastefully spent money, and lived paycheck to paycheck. Instead of discovering their passions, they pacified themselves with ephemeral indulgences—which only led to more debt, depression, and discontent.

After a pair of life-changing events, Joshua & Ryan discovered minimalism, allowing them to eliminate their excess material things so they could focus on life's most important "things": health, relationships, passion, growth, and contribution.

There is wreckage in the rearview. Jody Grafton's world is crumbling around him.

To get away from it all, Jody moves from his native Ohio to Brooklyn to sort through the rubble of his self-indulgent twenties. His marriage is over. His new girlfriend is pregnant. And his career as a pseudo-famous singer-songwriter has fallen apart: gone is his record deal, his money, his fame--even his desire to create new music. While he stares at the ruins of his musical career, his mother becomes ill, and Jody starts drinking heavily to deaden his new reality. After months of struggle, he attempts to put the pieces of his life back together the only way he knows how: through music.

DAYS AFTER THE CRASH, by Joshua Fields Millburn, is a short, five-chapter novella about a troubled man struggling to reconcile the demons of his past. To fade the scars of the last decade, Jody must face his self-inflicted wounds head-on if he plans to discover a brighter future on the horizon. But does he have the strength to piece his life back together?

The best of The Minimalists. 

This book by Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus collects the most relevant essays—some short, some long—from their popular website, TheMinimalists.com. This collection has been edited and organized to create an experience that's considerably different from reading individual selections online. From simple living, decluttering, and finances, to passion, health, and relationships, Essential is for anyone who desires a more intentional life.

People don't know how to love the ones they love until they disappear from their lives. 

As he approaches thirty, Jody Grafton's career as a singer-songwriter falls apart: he loses his record deal, his money, his fame--even his desire to create new music. While he stares at the rubble of his one-hit-wonder musical career, his mother is diagnosed with lung cancer, his marriage ends abruptly, and Jody starts drinking heavily to deaden his new reality.

When he hasn't a single reason left to live, he attempts suicide and ends up in a psych ward where he's prodded with questions he isn't yet prepared to answer. Amid the tailspin, Jody receives a phone call from his recently estranged girlfriend and she has unexpected news: she's pregnant.

As a Decade Fades begins with this phone call. As his twenties twilight, Jody Grafton grapples with loneliness, depression, lust, and infatuation while glancing at the mounting wreckage in his rearview. When he can't fit--or force--the pieces of his life back together, he leaves his native Ohio to search for answers in the most unlikely of places.

What does it mean to be human? How does a person find meaning in his or her life when everything's falling apart? 

Falling While Sitting Down is a short story collection about dealing with loneliness and discontent while balancing hope and despair. Ultimately, this book's stories deal with finding meaning in a seemingly meaningless world.

The first four stories in this collection, written by Joshua Fields Millburn, discuss the struggles we face as we attempt to discover the meaning of our lives.

"It's All So Quiet in Brooklyn," this collection's longest piece, follows a young but aging musician as he approaches thirty and finds himself coping with loneliness and depression in the aftermath of several life-changing events. He feels utterly alone, so he leaves Ohio to search for meaning in the most unlikely place: Bed-Stuy Brooklyn.

"A Radically Attenuated History of Generation X" is, as the title suggests, an incredibly short story that attempts to summarize a particular ethos for an entire generation through the eyes of two characters on a dinner date.

The title story, "Falling While Sitting Down," follows an unnamed boy through eighteen years of growing up in an extraordinarily dysfunctional family, showing the emotional muscles it takes to survive such circumstances.

The collection's final story, "Loneliest Man," considers the loneliness and real-life costs of poor relationship decisions from the point of view of a particularly troubled man.

As a bonus, three talented young writers--Colin Wright, Chase Night, and Mark D. Robertson--contributed to this collection, expanding the narrative beyond the scope of Joshua Fields Millburn's four stories.

The seven stories in this collection vary drastically, but they all share one thing in common: each story is about what it's like to be a human being during incredibly complex times.