WE LEARN IT TOO LATE: You’re Wasting the Only Life You’ll Ever Have (4,000 Weeks)- Oliver Burkeman

1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:00

   My calculation based upon what you're writing about is that I have around 1,700 to 1,800 weeks left on planet Earth.

2. OBOliver Burkeman0:09

   Mm-hmm.

3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:10

   But then this morning I also calculated it in terms of holidays. So I thought if I take one really nice holiday a year, then I've potentially only got 35 or 36 holidays left.

4. OBOliver Burkeman0:26

   Mm-hmm.

5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:26

   What was your hope when you came up with this concept of Four Thousand Weeks? Is that something that you found to be scary for people or quite enlightening and, I guess, liberating?

6. OBOliver Burkeman0:36

   I mean, I think it is scary at first, right? Especially that figure, which is the, it's a little bit less than the average human lifespan. I blatantly chose 4,000 because it's a round number, you know. Um, and of course, you know, nobody knows they're gonna get that much. They might get significantly more. They might tragically get a lot less. So y- it's sort of illustrative rather-

7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:56

   Yeah

8. OBOliver Burkeman0:56

   ... than any kind of fact. What is definitely true about the amount of time that you'll get is that it will be finite rather than limitless, and that's really the... You know, it sounds obvious, but I don't think we live properly in the, uh, in the acknowledgement of what that, of what that really means. So yeah, at first it's stressful 'cause you're like, "Okay, either I'm gonna feel really despairing about this or I've got to really strenuously try to make the most of every day in a way that actually is not very relaxing at all, but kind of awful." What I'm trying to guide people towards is that once you sort of really truly accept this fact of being finite, it is actually really liberating, and it is a relief. For as long as you are responding to th- this idea of having a limited amount of time with stress, like, "Oh my God, I've got to try to get a huge amount out of my life-

9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:48

   Yeah

10. OBOliver Burkeman1:48

    ... because there's so little of it," you still haven't quite taken on board the implication of it, which is like, no, we're all in the same boat. There will always be too much to do. There will always be more ambitions that you can think of than that you could ever put into practice. Always be more obligations you can feel from the society or from your family or whatever than you could ever fulfill, and that's really relaxing 'cause then it's like, "Oh, okay, I don't have to try to do this impossible thing with my life."

11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:18

    Yeah.

12. OBOliver Burkeman2:18

    "I can just focus on doing something really meaningful and possible."

13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:23

    Uh, I think you're right. I think it really is liberating. One of the ideas that deeply, deeply resonated with me in the book, this, this actually helped me make some big life decisions over the past few months, is this idea that, yes, we have to get good at saying no to things. But I thought your argument took it one step further because there's this kind of, I guess, underlying premise that we have to get good at saying no because some things actually are just the wrong things. So actually, let's not even bring them into our life in the first place. But you go one step further and go, "Actually, no, it's not just about saying no to things that you don't want to do and don't nourish you. You've actually also got to say no to things that you do want to do."

14. OBOliver Burkeman3:08

    Yeah, totally. Because I mean-

15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee3:11

    Which is mind-blowing, actually.

16. OBOliver Burkeman3:12

    [laughs]

17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee3:13

    It really is.

18. OBOliver Burkeman3:14

    Yeah, no, I, I mean, it, it has been for me as well, right? 'Cause I think in the, in the, in the background of all the stuff you hear all the time about how important it is to say no, there's this implication, as you say, you could just... If you did that, you could just say no to all the things that are kind of tedious chores-

19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee3:30

    Yeah

20. OBOliver Burkeman3:30

    ... all the things that don't quite work for you, and then your life would just be exactly properly fitted to the, like, like the time you would have would be exactly fitted to all the things that really matter in your life, and you'd live this sort of perfect, this perfect match. But there's no reason to assume that the, the, the sort of field of things that matter or that feel like they matter is only gonna be big enough to fill the time you've got, rather than exceeding it, right? I think there's, there's always gonna be more things that feel like they matter because the world is full of like, you know, countless opportunities and countless people suffering who need our help and countless good causes and, you know, countless interesting places to visit. All of these. There's just, there's just an endless amount, so why on earth would you ever expect that you could fit all of the ones that you cared about-

21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee4:21

    Yeah

22. OBOliver Burkeman4:21

    ... into your life? But we do. Like, I mean-

23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee4:22

    We do

24. OBOliver Burkeman4:23

    ... we do expect that sort of chronically. I think that is actually another of these examples of something that is really liberating because you can see that you don't have to fight to somehow make time for everything that matters. That that's kind of a futile quest. You just have to make time for some things that matter and let it go, that it's not gonna be everything.

25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee4:44

    'Cause otherwise I guess you, you go on that nice holiday. I don't know, let's take a mythical destination like the Maldives or Bali, right?

26. OBOliver Burkeman4:55

    Mm-hmm.

27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee4:55

    But then you could arrive back to wherever you live and see online that someone's posted a gorgeous sunrise photo in Mexico.

28. OBOliver Burkeman5:05

    Right.

29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee5:06

    Right?

30. OBOliver Burkeman5:06

    Right.

Episode duration: 1:38:50