The Year of Less: How I Stopped Shopping, Gave Away My Belongings, and Discovered Life Is Worth More Than Anything You Can Buy in a Store by Cait Flanders
My first audiobook of 2020. One woman’s journey to do with less. Less spending and less alcohol specifically. Flander’s relates her difficulties in addition to shopping and drinking and how a bargain with herself to spend less and stop drinking benefitted her life.
I’ve never had these struggles myself, but can certainly understand that they would be difficult addictions to part with once established. While I can certainly do with less (buying and possessions) I didn’t feel like this particular story really spoke to me. I’m married with children, I don’t have a drinking problem, and my wife and I discuss any purchase over $50.
I do think that many of these experiments seem to be young people who are unmarried and without children. These circumstances make it easier for them to make large changes in their life. Not saying it’s not possible for those who are married with children, it just poses more challenges.
This was another book that only received 3 out of 5 stars. I listened to it in only 3 days, but I just couldn’t relate. Not at all a fault of the writing or the author.
Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language by Gretchen McCulloch
Good, but drier than I thought it would be. Interesting stories, but I wanted something more. Something more fun and interesting, that was here but there wasn’t enough of it for me I guess.
Maybe I was overly excited for this one, but it lead me to only 3 out of 5 stars for my review.
In the book, Gretchen mentioned a podcast: Lingthusiam, which I listened to and it also left me wanting more. And that was the only note I took in the 327 pages of text in this book. Sorry for the meh, review, but it was kinda a meh book.
Very thick and full of references. I learned a lot which is why it gets 4 stars. I wouldn’t say this is for the casual reader.
55% of waste in the US is buried in covered landfill.
Kate O’Neill
Besides the above I learned that I live in the state, California, with the largest landfill in the US, the Puente Hills landfill, which was close in 2014.
Sad. This book had some difficult parts to read, but they did tell the story and the author can write well. The story is one that spoke to me in regards to the divide that develops between the educated and the less educated.
I gave this book 4 out of five stars. When I first started reading the book I actually though it was about the education system, but it is a biography of a woman who grew up in a very strict mormon family. They didn’t allow anyone to seek medical attention or see doctors for any reason, including child birth.
It is a wonder she and her siblings survived this upbring. As I said in the beginning it really did remind me that an education is so very important, and just the ones available at institutions like public or private school, but those you can gain yourself just by reading.
This book was powerful and a reminder that people with drastically different views on the world and really any issue have that view for a reason. Don’t count them out, speak to them and try to understand where they are coming from. You both might learn something.
The quote above tells us a lot about Cal’s book. I had really been looking forward to this book. I first her about Cal Newport from The Minimalist podcast. They talk about his book often almost as much as the books they have written themselves. In Digital Minimalist by Cal Newport I learned to delete apps that I use too much. Pay attention to the app usage reports that my iPhone gives me and try to stay away from social media apps, not much to be gained there. Although I do believe there are some good uses, you can just pick up your phone every time you get bored, as the quote above suggests. “Everyone secretly fears being bored.”
Another keeper from Cal is, “…wearing a red shirt on a dating profile will lead to significantly more interest than any other color,…” I love these kinds of insights, although I have no need for that particular one, maybe it will help one of you reading this post!
…the notification symbol for Facebook was originally blue, to match the palette of the rest of the site, “but no one used it.” So they changed the color to red–an alarm color–and clicking skyrocketed.”
Cal Newport
Likes is a behavioral addiction, the drive for social approval. Many are caught up in there. Many also believe that anyone can start a popular, revenue-generating blog. I’ve never made any money on any blogs or the podcast that I ran for years. Some can but it is the minority for sure.
It all comes do to this really…
Digital Minimalism: A philosophy of technology use in which you focus your online time on a small number of carefully selected and optimized activities that strongly support things you value, and then happily miss out on everything else.
Cal Newport
The average Facebook user uses the site for 50 minutes every day!
Don’t click and don’t comment
Cal Newport
Authors mentioned in the book: Decartes, Newton, Locke, Pascal, Spinoza, Kant, Leibniz, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Kierkgaard, and Wittgenstein.
A 2015 study found that teenagers use social media (text messaging and apps) about 9 hours a day on average.
In 90% of your daily life, the presence of a cell phone either doesn’t matter or makes things only slightly more convenient.
Cal Newport
Lessons:
Prioritize demanding activity over passive consumption
Use skills to produce valuable things in the physical world
Seek activities that require real-world, structured social interactions
The Dunbar number of 150 is a theoretical limit of the number of people that a human can successfully keep track of in their social circles. How many “friends” do you have?
Your Time = Their Money
Cal Newport
We all need to read and understand what Cal is telling us. We have fallen asleep and fallen into this new digital world, leaving the real-world behind or at the very least largely ignoring the real-world and real people. This book will hopefully, help you make some changes and wake up!
The Minimalist Home: A Room-By-Room Guide to a Decluttered, Refocused Life by Joshua Becker
Excellent. While Becker goes over quite a bit I wish there was more about the benefits and more about just how to get it done. Details would be very interesting to me as I still struggle with just how much to let go of and how to get the family onboard.
Above is my review from Goodreads right after I finished The Minimalist Home: A Room-By-Room Guide to a Decluttered, Refocused Life. Since reading this I have read more on minimalism, and they all seem to state that if we can model minimalism for our family members then eventually they will see all the benefits, and want to make the transition with us. So far, I have found this minimally successful.
Over the course of an average lifetime, because of all the clutter we live in, we will spend 3,680 hours, or 153 days, searching for misplaced items. Phones, keys, sunglasses, and paperwork top the list.
Joshua Becker
Josh Becker is kinda famous in this minimalist world. He has a great youtube channel and has influenced others to start their own.
Joshua Becker – What is Minimalism
Minimalism is — the removing of unnecessary possessions so we can better live the life we want as a family.
Joshua Becker
In the book among many other things, he discusses the endowment effect, which is the tendency to consider an object more important than it really is simply because we own it. For example, if I have an Anaheim Ducks mug, I may want to keep it, but if I saw the same thing in a store, I wouldn’t want to buy it. If I don’t like it enough to buy it then why do I need to keep this thing?
Never organize what you can discard.
Joshua Becker
I really love this one. How often do we see something in a drawer and just move it aside or look for a way to better organize it, when we really don’t need that thing at all?
You don’t need more space. You need less stuff.
Joshua Becker
Another great point that Joshua makes it all the time we waste watching tv. He states American’s on average watch 35.5 hours of tv a week. That’s almost a full-time job! Think about what you could do with that time, other than earning an extra income.
Another great one, that American family spends $1,700 on clothes annually. Is that really necessary? I mean, I don’t think anyone really cares what I wear? As long as my clothes fit I don’t think I need any more.
In 1930, the average American woman owned nine outfits. In 2015 that figure was 30 outfits–on for every day of the month.
Joshua Becker
Joshua also tackles the hard one, kids’ toys. He states that toddlers with fewer toys focused better and played more creatively.
Another favorite of mine is the garage. Joshua says, for a quarter of Americans the garage is so cluttered that we can’t even fit our cars in them.
How much did you spend on the holidays this year? Joshua estimates that the American family spends about $1,000 for the winter holidays on gifts. How many of those gifts are then donated or simply thrown away?
He just keeps going, I love all these bits of data he throws in to prove his point and I want to read more of his work. I subscribe to his youtube channel and will continue to follow his work. 4 stars for this book. A must read, if you haven’t gotten to it yet.
Just Ride: A Radically Practical Guide to Riding Your Bike
by Grant Petersen
Excellent common-sense advice from someone who knows what they are talking about. Ever wish you could sit down with the bike shop owner for a few hours and pick their brain. This book is your chance. Great advice and makes sense to this Unracer.
There are a lot of very expensive bikes and expensive gear. What Grant seems to set out to do in this book is to tell you that it’s not really needed to have some fun on a bike. Just because you have a bike doesn’t mean that you need to increase your FTP or find your optimal cadence. You can just ride to have fun and that can be enough.
You have way too many gears For all-around riding over a variety of surfaces and terrain, you need eight gears
Grant Petersen
I love this! Another one is to make it easier going up hills Grant suggests just standing up, you don’t have to shift down necessarily. There is nothing wrong with just getting up and letting your body weight on the pedals help propel the bike up the hill.
Look at the land as something to pass through, not to conquer
Grant Petersen
“Your bike will go where your eyes look”. Great advice. Another one he mentions you can turn with your hips, turn your hips in the direction you want to go and you don’t need to turn the handlebars. I’ve tried it and it works.
No matter how much you like it, bike riding shouldn’t be your only exercise. Ride your bike half of the time, then work the muscles that bike riding doesn’t
Grant Petersen
I highlight the quote above because I am guilty of this. I do add in yoga but really only so I can ride more without such stiff hips.
Just ride is a great book that reminds us that riding a bike doesn’t have to be complicated, expensive, or hard….just ride.
I first discovered Colleen through her podcast. Her podcast is very popular and it came up when searching for vegan. Through the podcast, I learned that she has also written some cookbooks. In the book, she tells us that she is giving the animals a voice through her work on the podcast, cookbooks and she also does virtual vegan cooking lessons through her website for a charge.
In the book, The Joyful Vegan Colleen walks us through the stages of becoming vegan and helps us understand that it is really all about compassion. Compassion to all beings, not just the animals. As anyone who is vegan knows we get a lot of questions and most people think veganism is extreme. Colleen reminds us all that we were once meat-eating folks ourselves and we all awaken in our own time. Be patient with those asking questions and making comments about our new lifestyle as we were once like them.
If you are so moved she also lays out what you can do to help be a voice for the animals by being an advocate. The book is well laid out and Colleen writes well. I wish I would have read this book sooner as it helps remind us that compassion is really about humanitarianism not just for the animals but for all people. By being good to the animals we will be good for the people as well.
How to Be Vegan: Tips, Tricks, and Strategies for Cruelty-Free Eating, Living, Dating, Travel, Decorating, and More by Elizabeth Castoria
I like this book a lot so I have a lot of notes to take here. For you and for me later.
Five “start-here” books:
Eating Animals, by Jonathan Sarfran Foer – I’ve read this, and I really enjoyed it. I was already vegetarian when I read it and it has just pushed me to go further. Wonderful book. I agree with it being on this list and being the first one on this list!
The Face on Your Plate by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson – I have not read this but it is on my list now!
Finding Ultra by Rich Roll – No, not Rick Roll. The whole title helps here: …Rejecting Middle Age, Becoming One of the World’s Fittest Men, and Discovering Myself. Yep, adding to shortlist.
The Lean by Kathy Freston – Rest of the title… A Revolutionary (and Simple!) 30-Day Plan for Healthy, Lasting Weight Loss. I’m not into diet books. I don’t need them anymore and I may be missing something, but I think I’m good here.
The average man in the United States has a 50 percent chance of having a heart attack. The average for vegan men? Four percent.
Books by Nutritionist:
Becoming Vegan by Brenda Davis and Vesanto Melina – 611 pages and only 8 ratings on Goodreads. Hmmm. We will see about this one.
Q: Where do you get your protein? A: From plants. Protein deficiency is essentially unheard of among people who are consuming enough food to meet their daily calorie needs.
Q: What about omegas and iron? A: You guessed it: you can easily get these from plants as well. Spinach is a powerhouse iron provider; omegas are easily found in flax and other seeds.
Q: What about calcium? A: Again, plants….dairy actually drains calcium from your bones as it is digested. Leafy greens are packed with calcium as are sesame seeds and tofu.
What about clothes? Some links to online places to get vegan stuff:
Where the Water Goes by David Owen follows David as he explores the Colorado river from start to finish. What he learns along the way about the “law of the river” he shares with the reader. A must for anyone reading this work is David’s web page containing pictures of everything he talks about in the book. The book does not contain any pictures outside of a map in the front.
I believe this book would have been too dry (see what I did there?) with anyone else narrating the story. David Owen weaves a bit of the story of others into the story as well as weaving in his own story and travels into, the history and law of the river.
How we (mostly me in Southern California) get our water consist of a very complex network of laws and crazy rules. It is amazing it works. I learned a lot about all of it and I’m glad I read this book.
the lake today contains only about thirty-eight percent as much water as it did in 1998
David Owen
Genevieve Valentine writes a great review of this book for NPR, that is a great overview and a better review than I have written here.
