How Did You Grow Up?

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I grew up near here, so it's not totally unfamiliar. I come from a family of people you might reasonably call obsessive planners. We're the type who like to get our ducks in a row by confirming as far in advance as possible how the future is going to unfold. My wife and i are lucky to make it to the end of june in any given year before receiving the first inquiry from my parents about our plans for christmas. So i werse that's where i to start.

“The average human lifespan is absurdly, terrifyingly, insultingly short.” So begins Oliver Burkeman’s new book, “Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals.” Make it to 80, and you’ll get about 4,000 weeks. And so, as the poet asked, “What will you do with your one wild and precious life?” For most of us, the answer is obvious: Get busy. Why squander what little time we have? But in this conversation with Next Big Idea Club curator Malcolm Gladwell, Oliver proposes an alternative. If you want to make the most of your time, he says, you have to stop chasing pointless productivity and embrace life’s finitude.