Things That Matter: Overcoming Distraction to Pursue a More Meaningful Life

by Joshua Becker

Overview

#1 WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER • Discover practical steps you can take today to live a life focused on things that matter, from the bestselling author of The More of Less and The Minimalist Home.

“Things That Matter points the way to free ourselves from the distractions of everyday life so that we can build the lives we seek to create.”—Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project

Everywhere around you are distractions: That text you respond to quickly, just to get it out of the way. The newest money-making side hustle to cross your mind. The evening spent organizing your overflowing kitchen cupboards.

Disruptions are the enemies of a life well lived—both the new distractions of our generation and timeless ones that have existed for centuries. They all add up to make you feel restless, tired, and unfulfilled. They’re keeping you from living with joy, from accomplishing the good that only you can do.

But that can change today.

In Things That Matter, Joshua Becker uses practical exercises, questions, insights from a nationwide survey, and success stories to give you the motivation you need to
 
• identify the pursuits that matter most to you
• align your dreams with your daily priorities
• recognize how money and possessions keep you from happiness
• become aware of how others’ opinions of you influence your choices
• embrace what you’re truly passionate about instead of planning that next escape
• figure out what to do with all those emails, notifications, and pings
• let go of past mistakes and debilitating habits
 
Things That Matter is a book about living well. It’s about overcoming the chatter of a world focused on all the wrong things. It’s about rethinking the common assumptions of today to find satisfaction and fulfillment tomorrow.
 
How do we get to the end of our lives with minimal regrets? We set aside lesser pursuits to seek lasting meaning. And we discover the joy of doing it every day.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593193976
Publisher:	The Crown Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/19/2022
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	140,866
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Joshua Becker, the bestselling author of The More of Less and The Minimalist Home, is the founder of Becoming Minimalist, a website dedicated to inspiring others to find more life by owning less. The website welcomes over 1.5 million readers each month and has inspired millions around the world to consider the practical benefits of owning fewer possessions. He is a contributing writer to Forbes and has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, HuffPost Live, and the CBS Evening News. Joshua and his family live in Peoria, Arizona.

Read an Excerpt

1

A Life with No Regrets


Beginning with a View to the End

We are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-­supplied but wasteful of it. . . .

Life is long if you know how to use it.

—Seneca, “On the Shortness of Life”


Bronnie Ware, an Australian nurse who spent several years caring for people during the last weeks of their lives, routinely asked her patients about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently if they could. Later she posted an article called “Regrets of the Dying” about her findings. In it, Ware wrote of the phenomenal clarity of vision that people gained at the end of their lives as well as the common themes that surfaced again and again during these conversations. This article has been shared millions of times online and was turned into a book in 2012.

It’s a fascinating premise, isn’t it? What do people most regret about their lives?

I’m not going to include the list here. Instead, I want to ask you: How badly do you want to know what’s on it? How tempted are you to google the article right now so you can see the top regrets that people have at the end of their lives? And more importantly, where does that desire to know the regrets of the dying come from? Isn’t the strength of your interest proof that you’re concerned that your life might be wasted?

(Now that I’ve got you thinking about that, if you still want to know what the list is, you can turn to the first endnote at the back of this book and find the list there.)

Why did a list about other people’s dying regrets go viral? It’s because we all know that’s going to be us nearing death someday and we don’t want to have regrets when we get there. And also, I believe, because we’re already starting to have regrets about our life choices.

For people in middle age, and even for people in young adulthood, it’s common to have nagging anxiety that we’re squandering our time and resources on things that are not important while not focusing enough on the things and people that really do matter. And we can easily imagine that we’ll be sorry about it someday if we don’t make a change. Yet on and on we go, putting the inconsequential ahead of the imperative.

On and on we go, putting the inconsequential ahead of the imperative.

Something’s got to change here. And there’s only so much time ahead in each of our lives to make the change.

We’re always going to make some foolish decisions along the way that we wish we could take back. So it’s probably not possible to live a life with absolutely no regrets. But it most certainly is possible to make changes that take us off the easy path of immersing ourselves in the ordinary and the immediate and put us onto a more intentional path that leads to a life that satisfies and resonates beyond our own mortal existence—a life well lived. Presented with the choice, don’t we all want a life of fewer regrets and more fulfillment?

One day, not long ago, I was forced to come face to face with something I just had to do before I died. And I want to tell you about it now, because it’s related to you.


One Thing

In October 2019, I sat with a number of team members from my staff at a conference called Start Finishing, at the K’é Main Street Learning Lab in Mesa, Arizona. Charlie Gilkey, author of a book with the same title as the conference, was our presenter for the day. Charlie told us he wanted us to be specific in applying the principles of the workshop to the most important work in our lives. To help us determine what that work was, he said, “Close your eyes and answer this question: If you were to die today, what is the one project you would be most disappointed that you weren’t able to complete?”

After asking ourselves the question, we shared around the table what work we saw as most important. The young woman next to me mentioned an art project she wanted to complete. A mother of two spoke about her desire to prepare her two teenagers for life. For me, without hesitation, I answered Charlie’s question this way: “If I were to die today, I would be most disappointed that I never got a chance to write that book I’ve been thinking about for a long time now.”

I bet you can guess what book it was.

It’s the one you’re reading right now.

For a while, I’d been thinking about writing a book that takes the principles of minimalism I am known for and paints a bigger picture of how distractions keep us from meaning, purpose, and satisfaction. And at that very moment in the Learning Lab, writing Things That Matter became my highest-­priority task. Because there is one message that drives me more than any other—and it’s not helping people clean out their closets, as useful as that is. The one message that burns most in my heart is the invitation to live an intentional, meaningful life. Apart from my faith and my family, this message is what I most want to be remembered for after I’m gone.

I’ve been reading and writing and talking about this subject for years, which has given me the opportunity to pick up many viewpoints and stories. Now I’m bringing all the most important insights together in one volume, focusing especially on how to achieve the focus that is required to live according to your priorities. In Things That Matter, I want to show you what you need to clear away from your life to transition to more intentional living.

Living a life of purpose is important not just to me or to a few others like me. It’s important to all of us, because we all have at least one thing (probably more) that we feel we just have to do before we die. And I’m not talking about bucket-­list items like “ride in a hot-­air balloon.” I’m talking about living in a way that makes a difference. I’m talking about knowing our lives matter and make an impact on the world in a positive way, that our existences mean something.

This brings me to you. Let me ask you the same question Charlie Gilkey asked me: If you were to die today, what one thing (or few things) would you be most disappointed that you weren’t able to complete? Please don’t just cruise past that question. Stop and think about it. Identify your top-level goals, clearly and specifically.

If you were to die today, what one thing (or few things) would you be most disappointed that you weren’t able to complete?

In preparation for writing this book, I commissioned a nationally representative poll—the Things That Matter Survey—that asked a number of questions related to the themes of this book. I’ll be referring to the survey findings regularly in the chapters to come, and I believe you’ll find the results fascinating. To start with, one question we asked was “Would you say that you have identified a clear purpose, or purposes, for your life?” I was pleased to see that 70 percent of respondents answered yes. Another 19 percent answered no, while 11 percent were unsure.

Do you know your purpose or purposes? If the answer is no or you are unsure (like 30 percent of the poll participants), I invite you to go to the “Discover Your Purposes” exercise at the end of this book. It will help you methodically think through the desires that land at the intersection of your passions, your abilities, and the needs of the world. You’ll see what works of service you’re suited for and drawn toward doing.

If you’re a part of the 70 percent and you think you know your purpose, that’s wonderful. Nevertheless, I encourage you to keep your mind open, because this book most likely will help you refine or redefine the things that matter to you along the way.

Right now, I want you to start believing that it’s not too late to reorient your life around your purposes. You can do something now to live the life you want to live and eventually come to the end with fewer regrets.

You can do something now to live the life you want to live.

The theme of this book isn’t a “how to be happy” message, though I believe living a life aligned with your values and passions is the quickest way to happiness in both the short term and the long term. This book is about so much more than how you feel; it’s about how you live the one life you have and how to keep it focused on the things that matter. I would go so far as to say the world needs you to live for the things that matter to you because you’re at your most productive and influential self when you’re offering your unique contribution.

There may be no greater pursuit for yourself and others than choosing to live a meaningful life focused on the things that matter.

Table of Contents

Part 1 The Objective and the Obstacles

1 A Life with No Regrets 3

Beginning with a View to the End

2 Distracted from Meaning 18

Letting the Lesser Crowd Out the Greater

Part 2 Distractions of a Paralyzed Will

3 Dreams Overshadowed 33

Overcoming the Distraction of Fear

4 Wounded 52

Overcoming the Distraction of Past Mistakes

Part 3 Distractions of the Lesser Good

5 The Me Monster 71

Overcoming the Distraction of Happiness

6 Enough Is Enough 86

Overcoming the Distraction of Money

7 Litter on the Road to Purpose 108

Overcoming the Distraction of Possessions

8 Trending 128

Overcoming the Distraction of Applause

9 Beaches Get Boring 145

Overcoming the Distraction of Leisure

10 Blinking Lights 165

Overcoming the Distraction of Technology

Part 4 Ending of the Book, Beginning of a more Meaningful Life

11 Live the Story You Want Told 193

And Expect Surprises

Bonus Exercise: Discover Your Purposes 209

Acknowledgments 221

Note 223

Editorial Reviews

01/10/2022

In this underwhelming follow-up to The Minimalist Home, Becker advocates for adopting minimalism as a way to overcome the everyday distractions that drain people’s lives of “meaning, purpose, and satisfaction.” The “personal, societal, and cultural distractions” Becker decries consist of the usual suspects: money, possessions, technology, and fear. Transcending them, he argues, requires embracing the minimalist ethos: essentially, doing better by having less. Becker hits his stride when observing that one best serves others when one best serves oneself, because “we remove distractions so we can live our best lives of contribution to others.” This service-oriented approach buoys a book otherwise bogged down by overreliance on cliché (“Having more money isn’t the secret to having more happiness”) and the author’s frequently unfortunate choices, such as likening technology users to heroin addicts and calling rumination “the enslavement of the past.” A few pearls of wisdom shine, but readers might not find the hunt worth the effort. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

The thought-provoking insights and stories inside Things That Matter will help you live your one precious life with more presence, purpose, and peace.”—Rachel Macy Stafford, New York Times bestselling author of Hands Free Mama

“Things That Matter is a must-read to recenter yourself and filter out the distractions of the world.” —Chris Norton, motivational keynote speaker featured in 7 Yards

“Reminding us that chasing fame and fortune squanders our precious life energy, Joshua offers a compassionate guide to finding what really matters.” —Robert J. Waldinger, MD, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School

“Joshua shares his insight from the perspective of a caring friend who wants to help you move beyond the regret-and-avoidance cycle into purposeful living.”—Dawn Madsen, The Minimal Mom and author of Declutter Your Home in 15 Minutes a Day

“This delightful guide full of impactful and practical information will lead you through many of the roadblocks you may be facing.”—Ronald L. Banks, speaker, writer, and coach

“Things That Matter is required reading for anyone seeking practical guidance on how to confront life’s many distractions and—more importantly—how to overcome them.”—Christine Platt, author of The Afrominimalist’s Guide to Living with Less

“By removing the distractions outlined in this book, we are able to clear the clutter and create space to build life balance, personal growth, and purpose.”—Dave Braun and Troy Amdahl (The OolaGuys), experts on work-life balance

“This book’s siren call—that we should aim to be generous, not wealthy, and get dirt under our fingernails by serving others—cements Joshua’s status as a much-needed voice of reason and kindness in the modern world.”—Helen Russell, bestselling author of How to Be Sad

“Every once in a while you read a book that can save you years (or decades) of angst, disappointment, and missed attempts at finding significance and contentment. This is one of those books, packed with wisdom and insight.”—Carey Nieuwhof, bestselling author, speaker, and podcast host

“Joshua’s work and this book are a beautiful combination of wisdom, warmth, and practical advice to help us live with intention and meaning. We have the power to make choices every day to do more of what truly matters—and Joshua offers us practical suggestions to do this.”—Nataly Kogan, bestselling author of The Awesome Human Project

“Ten years from now it won’t really matter what shoes you wore today, how your hair looked, or what brand of clothes you wore. What will matter is how you lived, how you loved, and what you learned along the way. And Things That Matter is a beautiful guide for getting there.”—Marc and Angel Chernoff, New York Times bestselling authors of Getting Back to Happy

From the Publisher