Meditations for Mortals

Friends,

This morning, we released a Next Big Idea podcast episode that is already on my short list of favorites — a conversation I had with journalist-turned-reluctant-self-help-guru Oliver Burkeman about his new book Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts .

Are you stressed about the election? I think you will find this conversation a refreshing distraction, and a wise reframing of much of what ails us. Listen on Apple or Spotify , and let us know what you think in the comments below.?

You may have heard of Oliver’s last book, Four Thousand Weeks , which, if we’re lucky, is about how long we have to putter about before our time comes to an end. As Oliver laments in the book’s opening line: “The average human lifespan is absurdly, terrifyingly, insultingly short.” Isn’t it, though?

“But that isn’t a reason for unremitting despair,” he concludes 231 pages later, “or for living in an anxiety-fueled panic about making the most of your limited time. It’s a cause for relief. You get to give up on something that was always impossible — the quest to become the optimized, infinitely capable, emotionally invincible, fully independent person you’re officially supposed to be. Then you get to roll up your sleeves and start work on what’s gloriously possible instead.”

Four Thousand Weeks became a surprise mega-bestseller, praised by The Atlantic as “self-help for people who generally find the genre mockable” and selected by our curators — Malcolm Gladwell, Susan Cain, Adam Grant, and Daniel Pink — as one of the eight best books of 2021.

Oliver’s new book invites us to embrace what he calls “imperfectionism.” Accept your limitations, your finitude, your lack of control — because “the more we try to render the world controllable,” he warns, “the more it eludes us; and the more daily life loses … its resonance, its capacity to touch, move and absorb us.”

It’s a beautiful book. It moved me. And speaks to a persistent question I have struggled with for years, best described by EB White, who said— “I arise in the morning torn between a desire to save the world and a desire to savor the world. This makes it hard to plan the day."

I have always, throughout my life, felt torn between these two intentions. It feels almost like having two personalities. The first is Rufus the entrepreneur, the man of action, the man “in the arena,” as Teddy Roosevelt put it in his famous rant. The man ...

whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

When I wake up in entrepreneur mode, as I do most days, I feel called upon to engage in the valiant battle to make the world incrementally better. It’s exciting! It’s important. It’s also interpersonally enriching, in my experience, because we can only change the world by collaborating with teams of other dedicated people. I arrive at many of my peak experiences of high adrenaline in this mode. The challenge with this mindset, of course, is that it’s exhausting. It’s a kind of perpetual state of combat, a refusal to accept the status quo. The entrepreneur is the “unreasonable man” — or woman — on whom “all change depends,” as George Bernard Shaw put it. Refusing to accept the status quo is a lot of work.?

When I wake up with an artistic mindset, in contrast, I see the world’s imperfections as nuances, integral to its beauty. It’s a serene state of detached appreciation, sensitivity to the sublime. This is the state in which I am most likely to experience awe. It feels to me like a wiser, healthier, more mindful mindset, a place I am choosing to spend more time as I get older. But it’s missing some of the adrenaline, the grit and gristle of life in the arena.

The question I have kept returning to is — must we choose between these sensibilities? Can we inhabit both? I posed this question to Oliver, and here’s what he said.

I'm not quite willing to say that there is no tension between these, but I am seeking to resolve that tension … There can be that savoring in the actions that mount up to something bigger. You can be the man who enjoys being in the arena.

You can ask yourself, what do I feel like doing? And it's extraordinary how that can actually turn out to be conducive to getting done the things that you want to [accomplish] in life. So I think, again and again, I'm exploring the possibility that there might not be a dichotomy here, between making a difference in life and enjoying it. (slightly edited for brevity)

I have come to the same conclusion. The key, I think, is to realize that there is no singular optimal state, as humans, but rather there are optimal cycles of states. We need to spend time in the arena, and time on the periphery, writing or painting or thinking about the wonder of it all.

Here are a few other insights from my conversation with Oliver:

• To be truly immersed in precious moments, and have more of them, you have to treat them, ironically, as if they are not precious.
• Most successful people are a "walking anxiety disorder, harnessed for productivity."
• A relationship in which you unquestionably have the power is no relationship at all
• Many of us wake up with a “productivity debt,” which is the feeling that “unless I get a certain amount done, I have not yet earned the right to exist.”
• Having lots of open projects makes you feel more powerful or in-demand, but it’s less effective and less pleasant doing fewer projects at a time.
• In contrast, finishing things however small, results in an amazing energy boost.
• Hold rules of productivity lightly. Don’t fall sway to the belief that “if I just follow the rules perfectly, they will live life on my behalf.”
• Challenge yourself with a “life task.” Ask yourself, “what is reality asking of me” at the intersection of hard and doable?
• Accomplishment doesn’t have to be borne of insecurity; it can be a joyful expression of being in this life.

Listen on Apple or Spotify , and let's discuss in the comments below.?

I asked Oliver one last question:

Rufus Griscom: We live in a time right now that a lot of people are experiencing as perilous. As you point out, people are increasingly living inside the news, inhabiting the news in a way that we used to inhabit our lives. What counsel would you have for listeners who find themselves overly invested in — and distressed about — the state of the world and what the future holds?

We are sharing his response exclusively with our paying subscribers. When you join , you will also receive full access to our daily book summaries, which are written and read by the authors themselves, and the warm, fuzzy feeling that radiates down your spine when you support a small team of people doing work they care about deeply. Thank you in advance. I hope to see you in the comments.