TIME TRAP
If you were told you should expect to live to about 80, it would sound like a banal observation because that figure is roughly the average allotment for someone living in the developed world. If it was 28,000 days or 670,000 hours, the numbers would be too large to conceptualise in a meaningful way. But 4000 weeks – that is a novel, graspable and arrestingly short period of time. Which is why it’s the title of Oliver Burkeman’s new book, Four Thousand Weeks: time and how to use it.
On my review copy there is a question below the title that asks, “How will you choose to spend yours?” Put like that, it might seem a daunting challenge, as though we’re being asked to cram as many unforgettable experiences and transcendent moments as possible into our all-too-brief stay on the planet. But Burkeman, who has become something of an expert on temporal fulfilment, is not at all in favour of that kind of frenzied approach to living.
As he writes, “The retiree ticking exotic destinations off a bucket list and the hedonist stuffing her weekends full of fun are arguably just as overwhelmed as the exhausted social worker or corporate lawyer.” All of these archetypes demonstrate what he calls the paradox of limitation: the more you try to manage your time and the more you seek to achieve total control, “the more stressful, empty and frustrating life gets”.
Strangely, given that so many of us live in unprecedented material comfort, people
