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Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts by Oliver Burkeman

I’ve just finished Oliver Burkeman’s latest book – Meditations for Mortals. I’ve been a big fan of Oliver Burkeman since I read The Happiness Antidote years ago. His latest book is written in four sections (representing a week) and seven chapters (one for each day) and is designed to be read to impart a little wisdom into your life each day. Burkeman describes it as a ‘retreat for your mind’, a way of living the philosophy here and now and integrating it into your life, and, to be honest, I think it should go on the school curriculum!

At the heart of the book is a humble admission and acceptance of our finiteness and limitations as human beings. Burkeman describes how a sense of not having life nailed down yet, a desire to drive oneself harder and harder, make the most of one’s time and be as productive as possible feeds our anxiety, disappointment and overwhelming sense of failure. The essential trouble we have is the fatally misguided idea that we are in control over our reality and that peace of mind and prosperity lie in holding on as tight as possible to this control. And so, life edges towards being a dull, solitary and often infuriating chore, something to be endured, in the hope that better times are in the future but never quite seem to arrive.

Resonate much?

If it does, this book is the antidote to that feeling. It sweeps into your life like a breath of fresh air. There’s just far too much wisdom for me to summarise it here and it’s with great difficulty that I give you my absolute favourite top 5.

Accept your expiry date

The first week of the book discusses our finiteness as humans. It’s something we spend a lot of our time not thinking about and for good reasons. Burkeman opens by explaining that the most liberating, empowering and productive thing you can do, if you want to spend more of your time upon this planet doing things that matter to you, is to accept you are finite. You have limited time and limited control over that time. And, he admits, it’s a grim thought. But, he says, the aim is not to lighten the burden, but rather to get you to accept its heaviness and stop struggling under the weight of carrying it. Put it down. And then? Then you get to relax, accomplish more, enjoy yourself and work out what is important to you. Stop spending so much energy denying your predicament and go for good enough in the time you’ve got rather than perfect in the time you haven’t.

You always have a choice, the decision is whether you’re happy to pay the price.

You might feel sometimes that you are trapped, whether that’s in a job, relationship, habit, etc. The feeling that you don’t have a choice or the freedom to do as you wish can be overwhelming and create a lot of anxiety. But the astounding reality of it is, you are pretty much free to do whatever you want, you must only face the consequences. Of course, some of these consequences may be more severe for some than others and that is a grossly unfair reality. However, for most of us, if we are honest, we tend to exaggerate the potential consequences to spare ourselves the burden of making a bold choice.

Don’t be your own worst enemy.

We’re talking about self-compassion here. Quite often, there’s a resistance to being ‘self-indulgent’ but not beating yourself up is not the same as letting yourself get away with everything. Instead, it is not treating yourself in punishing ways in which you wouldn’t dream of treating anyone else. Telling ourselves we ‘should’ be doing this and we ‘can’t’ do that just leads to feeling resentful and annoyed by whatever we’re trying to force ourselves to do. Instead, ask yourself ‘How do you want to spend your time today?’ and you’ll not only be more productive but enjoy yourself too.

Stop being so kind to future you

This chapter is all about being present in your life as it is right now and right here. Some of us cling to the idea that we must suffer in the present so that a future version of ourselves gets the benefits. We live with the uneasy feeling that there will be a point in the future where we will be able to enjoy ourselves or feel good about ourselves and so we treat our lives like something we have to ‘get through’ and endure until better days. Burkeman argues that we have to show up in our lives right here and right now. We can still have plans for the future and goals we work hard towards, but we let go of the feeling that we cannot fully immerse ourselves in our lives until we have achieved them.

Offer scruffy hospitality

As Mary Carter said. ‘A perfectly kept house is a sign of a misspent life.’ We’ve all done it. We spend hours tidying, cleaning and perfecting the house before guests come to visit. The question is, Why? We rarely judge those we love when we see the signs of a busy life in their home, so what makes us strive to present something unrealistic and untrue? Scruffy hospitality is not waiting for everything in your house to be in order before you invite guests round. Instead you value the good conversation, simple food and peals of laughter at the chaos. It’s an act of generosity. In this way, we meet humanity in the acceptance that everyone is imperfect and struggling and prone to messing things up.