It's a Minimalist Monday edition of Optimal Living Daily Episode 1550. Minimalism,

the Lean Life by Leo Babata of mnmlist.com and I'm Justin Mollick. Happy Monday,

welcome back to Optimal Living Daily or the OLD podcast where I read to you from some of the best

blogs I can find and get permission from mostly covering personal development and minimalism on

this show. We cover a bunch of other topics in the Optimal Living Daily Podcast Network which

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Optimal Living Daily to find them. Offer now let's get right to it and start optimizing your life.

Minimalism, the Lean Life by Leo Babata of mnmlist.com.

Often people think that having more will lead to greater comfort, pleasure, happiness,

insecurity but in my experience living a leaner life leads to greater freedom, lightness,

happiness and peace. Take the example of traveling. There's a case of the prepared traveler. You

can travel with everything you think you might need from every possible outfit combination to

equipment, food, tons of electronics, books, notebooks, travel pillows and blankets, multiple

shoes and more. This person has to lug around a rolling suitcase plus a backpack,

making travel more burdensome, more stressful, more tiring. It takes a while to travel anywhere

and then you're tired when you get there. Then there's the case of the light traveler.

She carries almost nothing just the essentials and doesn't have to lug around anything heavy.

As a result she's faster, lighter, more energized, with greater freedom. She doesn't always have

everything she might want but she has what she needs and learns to make do with less. It's actually

not hard once you learn a few skills and you don't feel stressed out. This leanness values freedom,

lightness, flexibility, energy and contentment over maximum comfort, just in case it is or having

it all. A few other lean examples. Number one, weight. If you eat less, sure you don't get the

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