The Atlantic

Stop Spending Time on Things You Hate

Your time on Earth is precious and limited. Here’s how to waste it.
Source: JAN BUCHCZIK

How to Build a Lifeis a weekly column by Arthur Brooks, tackling questions of meaning and happiness.


Arthur C. Brooks will discuss the science of happiness live at 11 a.m. ET on May 20. Register for In Pursuit of Happiness here.


The other afternoon, in an effort to avoid doing my work, I picked up Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. It turned out to be a fitting choice, as Thoreau has quite a bit to say about wasting time. “The cost of a thing,” he wrote in Walden, “is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”

Thoreau’s point is not that we should be all work and no play—he was one of history’s most prominent critics of that way of living. Rather, he

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Atlantic

The Atlantic4 min read
Your Phone Has Nothing on AM Radio
This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here. There is little love lost between Senator Ted Cruz and Representative Rashida Tlaib. She has called him a “dumbass” for his opposition to the Paris Climate Agre
The Atlantic5 min read
The Strangest Job in the World
This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors’ weekly guide to the best in books. Sign up for it here. The role of first lady couldn’t be stranger. You attain the position almost by accident, simply by virtue of being married to the president
The Atlantic8 min readAmerican Government
The Most Consequential Recent First Lady
This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here. The most consequential first lady of modern times was Melania Trump. I know, I know. We are supposed to believe it was Hillary Clinton, with her unbaked cookies

Related Books & Audiobooks