“You’ll Waste Your Whole Life If You Don’t Hear This” – Time Expert Oliver Burkeman Warns

1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:00

   In your new book, you talk about the kind of life that you would like to be living, and you describe it as calm and focused, energetic and meaningfully productive and connected to others, as opposed to anxious, isolated, and overwhelmed. I think that's the kind of life, Oliver, that many people would also like to lead. So I guess my first question is twofold: Why do so many people struggle to lead that kind of life? And secondly, how are you getting on in your quest to doing so?

2. OBOliver Burkeman0:36

   [laughing] Great questions. Yeah, I mean, I think there are so many reasons why, why it's hard to, to sh- to, to live that kind of life, right? Reasons to do with the society that we live in, reasons to do with the ways we were parented and the messages we give ourselves. I think the reason I really want to focus in on, and that relates to your second question, is there's a problem with seeing that as something that you're striving towards, something that's off in the future, and that you're gonna work really, really hard, and then eventually that's gonna be your life. There's a big sort of mistake involved in that, in that approach, as opposed to seeing it as something that you can actually claim for yourself right here in the, in the moment. And of course, that doesn't get away from the fact that there's, like, too much to do and too many emails, and the economic system that we live in exerts all sorts of pressures. But there's something really important, I think, about the idea that we can actually enter into that way of being right here, at least to some degree, instead of seeing it as this thing that we're constantly chasing on the horizon. So yeah, my-- to the extent that I have succeeded in living a life like this, which is definitely only, [chuckles] only partial, um, is because I've found ways to sort of step into it now instead of, uh, sort of reinforcing this notion that it's always in the future, that I've always got to do more until I can, till I can get to it.

3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:04

   Yeah, it's interesting. Through, through the lens of health, I think about what you just said in the context of weight loss. And something I've realized over my career is for people who are looking for sustainable weight loss, for whatever reason that might be, too often it's put off into the future. When I lose weight-

4. OBOliver Burkeman2:25

   Mm-hmm

5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:26

   ... and get to this weight, I'm going to be happy and go on holiday here and do this or do that hobby, whatever it might be. And I found it much more, um, helpful for people to say, "No, no, why don't you do those things now?"

6. OBOliver Burkeman2:42

   Right.

7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:43

   And then I think you'll find that the weight loss, obviously you have to do some things-

8. OBOliver Burkeman2:46

   Yeah

9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:47

   ... are gonna come quite nicely as a, almost like a second order effect of that, rather than the other way around.

10. OBOliver Burkeman2:52

    Totally. I can totally see how that will work in weight loss. I think of it in the context of like, um, overwhelm, right? I have a sh- huge tendency, I'm, I'm letting go of it to a large extent, but I have this huge tendency to say, "Right, okay, I want my life to be calm and peaceful." It feels incredibly overwhelming, overwhelmed with demands and obligations, and emails and everything. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna really, really buckle down and power through and spend much more time, uh, on all the, the overwhelming stuff, and actually have a less peaceful life and a busier life, and a more stressed life 'cause I'm gonna get through it to this-

11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee3:26

    Mm

12. OBOliver Burkeman3:27

    ... alleged vista of peace and calm on the other side. And I think where that connects to what you were saying is, if instead you can see how you show up in the day-to-day as some form of expression of the life that you wanna live. Not a perfect one, it's never gonna be a perfect one, but if you can sort of... If you say like, "Okay, I, I want to get to this point where I've lost enough weight that I can enjoy myself, so what if I took that focus on what I want to enjoy now?"

13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee3:53

    Mm-hmm.

14. OBOliver Burkeman3:54

    And I think it, time and again, yeah, people find that-

15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee3:57

    Yeah

16. OBOliver Burkeman3:57

    ... what happens then is like, then you're living, you're living the life you want to live in, so it's exciting and fun to get better at living that life-

17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee4:03

    Yeah

18. OBOliver Burkeman4:03

    ... and to lose more weight and to be more calm, and to handle more of the demands without sort of, well, spinning off into overwhelm.

19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee4:10

    Yeah, there's also a compassion to yourself in living this way. I know you, you do talk about in one of the chapters, and you also acknowledge how self-compassion can be a difficult term for British people-

20. OBOliver Burkeman4:21

    Yes

21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee4:21

    ... to get, to get our heads around.

22. OBOliver Burkeman4:23

    Yep.

23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee4:24

    Right? But through the lens of weight loss, it, you know, often people wanna, uh, beat themselves up, deprive themselves, restrict themselves until they've reached the goal-

24. OBOliver Burkeman4:34

    Yeah

25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee4:34

    ... of a set weight, so that then they're gonna start, you know, treating themselves in the right way and it, it doesn't work like that.

26. OBOliver Burkeman4:41

    All, all you're doing then, right, is yeah, you're reinforcing this notion that you're bad.

27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee4:44

    Exactly.

28. OBOliver Burkeman4:44

    You need fixing. You can't really fully participate in life until you have, uh, achieved that, that, that fixing. And the... I mean, I had such a struggle with this idea of self-compassion because, as you say, there's something about it that invites me to think I'm being told that I have to see myself as super, super special, and much more deserving of love and cuddles than anyone. None of that. The thing that really made the change for me was when I came across this idea from a philosopher called Ido Landau, who talks about the, the reverse golden rule. So not treat other people as you would like to be treated yourself, the famous golden rule, but, but, um, don't treat yourself worse than you would treat other people. And I think that is, that was such a moment for me when I realized that I sort of went through my days often sort of berating myself internally in ways I would just never... Like, I would just never dream of doing that to, well, anyone. A friend-

29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee5:39

    Mm.

30. OBOliver Burkeman5:39

    A person I met in a, like, day-to-day business context, it would be utterly outrageous to be that, that horrible. So all I was asking of myself, even if it gets labeled self-compassion and triggers all sorts of cringe responses from Brits, like all I was asking from, of myself was equal treatment, uh, that I would already perfectly, that I was already perfectly good at giving to other people.

Episode duration: 1:55:28