A Gentler Memento Mori
Illustration: k_viktar / Adobe Stock
Instead of expecting superhuman productivity from our limited days, Burkeman wisely counsels us to embrace what is possible.
Following up on his bestseller Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, Oliver Burkeman is back with a new book to help us live our precious weeks well. His primary message is that we are limited beings, mere mortals with a finite amount of time and energy. Burkeman wisely counsels us to embrace what is possible, instead of expecting superhuman productivity. It’s a refreshingly humane approach.
Meditation for Mortals is essentially a greatest-hits album culled from the vast literature on productivity hacks for life and work and packaged into an efficient and effective four-week course. In the first week, Burkeman helps us face our finitude, a reality he urges us to embrace rather than deny. For my money, the second week’s theme of “Taking Action” was worth the price of admission. It convinced me to become a dedicated “imperfectionist,” someone who does not let an idea of the unattainable “best” get in the way of creating something good. In the third week, Burkeman urges us to give up our laughable attempts at control and surrender to the natural flow of our work. He finishes the four-week journey where he started, observing that it is the very fleeting nature of our days that make them so precious.
Taking his wisdom from such disparate sources as Jerry Seinfeld, Dan Harris (of 10% Happier podcast fame), and Benedict of Nursia (the father of Western monasticism), Burkeman finds just the right aphorisms to illustrate his liberating invitation to embrace our limitations.
From Seinfeld, we get the idea of identifying one’s primary purpose. For Jerry, it was making people laugh, which he accomplished by committing to the modest goal of writing at least one new joke a day. Such manageable goals yield results that accumulate quickly over time.
From Dan Harris, we get the concept of completing tasks crucial to our purpose “daily-ish.” Daily-ish disciplines permit us to make steady progress by allowing flexibility when life demands it, avoiding the temptation to give up on a practice simply because you miss a day here and there. By meditating daily-ish, Harris sustains his regular meditation practice, a simple but devilishly difficult thing to accomplish when so many other priorities impinge upon our meditation time.
From the founder of Western Monasticism, Benedict of Nursia, Burkeman gleaned the time tested wisdom of Benedict’s Rule. Benedict was the first to organize monastic life around a rule, i.e. the daily practices governing how monks organize their life and work together. For example, all monks would work from mid-morning until noon and then return to communal prayer. Just three hours of focused work was sufficient, leaving the rest of the day for contemplative living. The reason Benedict’s Rule has endured for so long is because it is a model of moderation, neither too strict, nor too lax. Benedict knew that either extreme would not inspire the monks to live and work together peaceably and productively.
Simply imposing a list of rules upon yourself will certainly fail unless it inspires you to take actions that you already want to take. Rules are just guidelines that can remind us of our priorities, our values, and the virtues we want to cultivate. I learned how ineffective white-knuckling your way through a gym regimen is without some flexibility. As a young man, I desperately wanted to become a master of Mixed Martial Arts. My method for achieving greatness was to design a punishing workout regimen and rigidly following the rule of practicing for hours every day, WITHOUT EXCEPTION. Instead of getting better, I got injured. Worse yet, my inflexibility prevented the sort of spontaneity necessary to cultivate healthy relationships. Rather than experiencing the joy of the sport and the benefits of personal discipline, I wound up quitting the sport because of the self-imposed demands of an overscheduled life, which had crowded out time to enjoy a fulfilling, college experience.
Life does not serve rules. Rules serve life, or they are simply the wrong rules.
Meditation for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024)