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Author: Patrick Rhone

One of my intentions for this year was to complete one small home organization task each week. One this to make one small area better than I found it. Today, I choose the cleaning supplies under the sink. This has been an area of mess and confusion for as long as I have lived in this house (almost 10 years).

I threw out stuff, combined same items, and put like things together. I then put the least used stuff in the back and the most towards the front. No more digging. So much better!

It still amazes me how one hour of effort can be a solution to ten years of frequent vexation yet, how slow we are to recognize the problem and act. How easy it is to blow off something that, once done, gives such satisfaction and relief.

Re-releasing enough

enough book
My most popular book, enough is being re-released today after a few weeks of being unavailable for sale. Enough is a series of essays that explore the idea of living a life with just enough of what you need and proposing some strategies to get there.
I wont bore you with the details of why it was out of stock, I’ll suffice to say it was some behind the scenes business changes. I’m excited this is back out there as the ideas that I put into the book will be featured in the upcoming documentary, Minimalism which I was interviewed for and will be touring the country soon.
As part of the change the title is now available to Kindle Unlimited subscribers for free. If you are a member of that, then I’d be honored if you added it and took the time to read.
If you have yet to get a copy, consider getting it for yourself or someone you love in Paperback or Amazon Kindle
In addition, I also am now offering personally signed copies of some of my titles. This is a paperback — each one signed personally by me to you (or, if you prefer, anyone you wish). To buy a one, click one of the links below:
enough
This Could Help
Minimal Mac

Why I don’t want stuff | Derek Sivers

Why I don’t want stuff | Derek Sivers

I live in a little pre-furnished apartment with no stuff, and I love it this way. I have no books, knicknacks, decorations, and really no personal items at all. Just some minimal clothing, my laptop, headphones, and not much else. All the kitchenware and furniture just came with the place, and will stay here when I leave.

Live the way that works best for you and communicate the reasons why to others. That’s the basis for living an intentional life.

In Your Next Letter

by Carrie Shipers

In your next letter, please describe
the weather in great detail. If possible,
enclose a fist of snow or mud,

everything you know about the soil,
how tomato leaves rub green against
your skin and make you itch, how slow

the corn is growing on the hill.
Thank you for the photographs
of where the chicken coop once stood,

clouds that did not become tornadoes.
When I try to explain where I’m from,
people imagine corn bread, cast-iron,

cows drifting across grass. I interrupt
with barbed wire, wind, harvest air
that reeks of wheat and diesel.

I hope your sleep comes easy now
that you’ve surrendered the upstairs,
hope the sun still lets you drink

one bitter cup before its rise. I don’t miss
flannel shirts, radios with only
AM stations, but there’s a certain kind

of star I can’t see from where I am-
bright, clear, unconcerned. I need
your recipes for gravy, pie crust,

canned green beans. I’m sending you
the buttons I can’t sew back on.
Please put them in the jar beside your bed.

In your next letter, please send seeds
and feathers, a piece of bone or china
you plowed up last spring. Please

promise I’m missing the right things.

I want to change your life…

…For the better. Even if it’s just for a little bit. But, my goal is to change it for the better for good. So that you are just a bit happier or a bit better.
That’s why I write. I know that if I put out enough posts, or enough books, or share the right things that one of them, eventually, will make someone’s life somewhere out there just a little better.
But why? Why do I care? Why does such hope give me such a deep amount of satisfaction? Why do I spend so much time and effort on it?
I believe the best way to make the world around me a better, friendlier, and stronger place to live in is to help others that occupy it with me be better, friendlier, and stronger. It can’t be done alone. I can’t change the world only by being better, friendlier, and stronger myself. So, I try to change others lives too.
Maybe it is egotistic and foolhardy to think I can have that sort of impact. And, maybe I can’t. But, I can try. And every victory, no matter small or large, tells me that I can. If I write enough or care enough or offer enough that, eventually, I can make someone’s life a little bit better and by doing so I can make the world incrementally better.
When I die, I want the people I’ve helped to be the largest asset I leave behind so that a happier world may be my children’s greatest inheritance. And I believe that can be done one word, one action, and one opportunity, at a time.

Our Penny Universities

Our Penny Universities

During the Enlightenment, the greatest minds were tweeting. Instead of utilizing the medium of the internet their network for spreading ideas were “penny universities.” For just a penny — the price of a cup of coffee — diverse groups of people gathered in English coffeehouses to discuss news and debate the latest ideas in philosophy, science, and politics. The takeaways from these gatherings in the coffeehouses — dubbed “penny universities” — spread to others in the network through individuals called “runners.” All of us today rest on the shoulders of those who sat in these penny universities, pushing the frontiers of ideas.

Wow.  I had no idea about the fascinating history of the English coffeehouse until I read this though provoking post.