00:00One of my early awakenings had to do with armpit smell.
00:05I started to think, humans have existed for
00:08tens of thousands of years, long before
00:11deodorant ever existed. Do I really need
00:13this corporation in order to be a happy,
00:16healthy, contributing member of society?
00:19And I thought, no.
00:30As a young adult, as a teenager, deodorant
00:51was extremely important to me. It was the
00:54center of my self-esteem. And why did I
00:57have it? Because these corporations had
00:59really good advertising. They told me I'd
01:02be sexy if I had it. And they really sold me.
01:06So that's when I gave up deodorant.
01:09That was about nine years ago. Since then,
01:12I have given thousands of hugs as I'm
01:15traveling around meeting different people.
01:18And occasionally, I smell a little bit.
01:21But that's a normal part of being a human being.
01:24♪
01:29I have to be honest. Partly, this makes me
01:31think about freedom. I mean, there are
01:33certain ways that my life is more
01:35restricted by not having a car. I grew up
01:37in a car culture. Where I grew up in
01:40northern Wisconsin, almost everybody has
01:43a car. Your car was your freedom and it
01:45was your image. But I also see about, you
01:50know, $5,000 to $7,000 a year, which means
01:52a job, maybe a job that I don't want to
01:55be working. More bills that are associated
01:57with this. I sold my car in 2012 and I
02:02always like to say that selling my car
02:04bought my freedom.
02:06♪
02:10Early on, when I started to get into being
02:12financially independent, I started to get
02:15credit cards because I realized that I
02:17could use them as a tool. But one of the
02:20things I realized is that having, doing
02:22this, although there were benefits, it
02:24really locked me into this financial
02:26system. A credit card allows you to just
02:28swipe it and have all of your needs met
02:31without having to think about where the
02:33things come from, how do they get to us
02:35and what the impact it has on the earth.
02:38All I have is cash. No credit card or
02:43debit card, no bank account, no life
02:46savings. Literally, right now I have about
02:48$3,700 and it's all in cash right here in
02:53my backpack.
02:54♪
02:58In the past, I had multiple of myself.
03:01There was my business self, there was
03:03myself with my friends and then there
03:05was myself with my family. And I realized
03:08I didn't want that. And so I decided,
03:11I'm just going to be me no matter what,
03:13not be judged by my clothes. And I
03:16downsized a bit by bit. I held on to one
03:20pair of business pants and a shirt and a
03:22tie. And then one day I decided, done
03:25with it. I'm getting rid of all my
03:27business clothes. And that was over five
03:30years ago. And since then, I've just fully
03:34embraced myself as who I am, not the
03:37clothes that I'm wearing.
03:38♪
03:43Geez, the phone. One of the big things
03:45about it was, I wanted to be present. I
03:48found that my phone was a crutch. If I was
03:50outside waiting for someone, I would get
03:53on my phone just so I looked busy. So I
03:56started to practice. I would leave the
03:58phone at home more and more. And
04:00eventually, I left my phone in a drawer
04:03for a month to test it out and see if I
04:05could exist without a phone. It went
04:07great. And then I got rid of my phone.
04:09♪
04:33Where I live in the United States, we
04:35have just 5% of the world's population,
04:37but consume 25% of the world's resources.
04:40This isn't sustainable. So what I'm
04:43trying to do by living with so few
04:45possessions, it's about creating an
04:48extreme situation that gets people to
04:50reflect on their own stuff. Ask them if
04:53that's giving them the life they want.
04:55And if not, maybe they decide they want
04:58to live a life that's less focused on
05:00stuff and work on downsizing their life.
05:02Not to the point of 50 possessions, but
05:05to the point of living in balance, of
05:08having what they need and not what they
05:09don't.
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