New shows on Netflix. New York Timesbestselling books. Donation centers bursting at the seams. Photos of neatly rolled garments taking over Instagram. A new verb, ”Kondo-ing,” entering the lexicon.

In case you haven’t noticed, minimalism and the tidying up movement are having a moment. “Less is more” has gone mainstream.

 It’s not that the idea of living with less, and the realization of the attendant benefits, is a newly discovered concept. Thousands of years ago, Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus came to the conclusion that “Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.” It’s just that today’s culture, or at least some meaningful corner of it, is finally catching on.

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Nearly two years ago, Heather and I transformed Life and Whim from a blog, which we had started a year prior, into a business. Heather manifested a dream to create and launch a collection of northern Michigan-inspired apparel and accessories on our online store. It was both a stressful and exhilarating experience.

In anticipation of the launch, we spent a tremendous amount of time laying the groundwork by creating content in order to build an audience, being active on social media, and forming relationships with “influencers” who could help us spread awareness of our new entrepreneurial endeavor.

We did this work while running the marketing agency we’ve owned together for more than a decade. It’s the means through which we make our living. And, to be honest, we neglected our agency for a time as we chased our dream of building a lifestyle brand through Life and Whim.

We had really high hopes for the launch of our store. We envisioned a day, in the not too distant future, when Life and Whim would become our full-time endeavor. But things didn’t work out the way we expected.

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The typical overworked and overstressed American limps into most weekends. 5 p.m. on Friday is a finish line that leads straight to the couch. The rest of the weekend is a blurry haze of obligations, errands, and other tasks that couldn’t be accomplished during the workweek. Instead of going into Monday refreshed and recharged, we enter the new week just as exhausted as we left the previous one.

 

The cycle repeats over and over, intermittently interrupted by vacation time. The thing is, we’re not particularly good about taking vacations. The Society for Human Resource Management found that while employees who take more vacation are happier and more productive, the average worker took only 17 days off in 2017. Another recent survey found that the average U.S. employee takes only half of their allotted vacation time. Moreover, in today’s “24/7” always-on work culture, vacation often means merely working off-site.

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While spending way too much time inside over the past week as the polar vortex descended on the Midwest, Heather and I started planning our summer bucket list. On the agenda are some classic favorites, such as camping trips with friends, beach days in Sleeping Bear Dunes, backpacking at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, and lazily exploring northern Michigan’s quaint coastal towns. 

But a bucket list wouldn’t be complete without adding some new adventures into the mix. Routine has its benefits, but life—especially in adulthood—can get stale without the pursuit of more first moments. 

Think about the last time you learned a new skill, hiked a new trail, visited a new country, or formed a new relationship. Recall what it feels like to expose your family to new experiences, and to see the wonder in your children’s eyes. These are the moments—“First Moments”—that make us feel alive, create lasting memories, and remind us that how we spend our days is how we’ll spend our lives.

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For years, while living in urban and suburban environments, Heather and I would look for opportunities to escape to our “happy place.” When the stress became too much, the busyness crept in, and we just needed a moment to catch our breath, slow down and spend time in nature, we’d head north. Most often, Traverse City, Michigan, was our destination.

We would spend a long weekend recharging, hiking the trails and exploring Sleeping Bear Dunes, eating fresh food, and breathing in the crisp air. After a few days, we would begin the trek home, and spend much of the four-hour drive fantasizing about how nice it would be to spend all of our time in our happy place while lamenting how unrealistic the whole idea was. After all, we had a family to raise, businesses to run, and responsibilities to look after. Maybe after we retire, we’d conclude, while exiting off the highway.

But year after year, the allure of our happy place would keep pulling us back, and that nagging desire to make our intermittent escapes our everyday existence persisted. The obvious and irrefutable logic of the truth we were denying was inescapable: We only have one life to live, so why wait until retirement—an uncertain, future outcome—to live how we want, where we want?

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Here I sit, alone, at the keyboard, staring at the blinking cursor. It’s the new year and time to publish a new post on our blog. I have high expectations—I want to write something insightful, helpful, and that strikes a chord. Yet these expectations are crippling. All I can focus on is the outcome, and I fear that the result of my work will be nothing but banal meaninglessness. More drivel. Just another insignificant drop in the ocean.

So my mind races. The very thing—focus—that is required to achieve the outcome I desire—insight—escapes me. The shorthand for this state of paralysis is writer’s block.

It’s a strange thing, writer’s block. It’s not like I forgot how to write. Writing is merely the act of putting down words on paper. As Seth Godin likes to say, it’s not like anyone gets talker’s block. You just talk, and the words dissolve into the ether. And I guess that’s the rub: These words are staring me in the face. They’ll exist for all time, and will be subject to the judgment of others. Hence, the high expectations. 

 In moments like this, as I’ve learned over time, the only way out is to confront the constraints head on. Write what you know, as they say, and right now all I know is that I’m trapped by my mind. So here we go.Most people, who are desirous of a future result, want to get there as fast as possible. They set an ambitious goal and try to accomplish it quickly, which typically leads to failure, burnout, and frustration. 

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