Is There Something Toxic About Modernity That Is the Cause of All This?

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

i find it really hard to believe that anybody doesn't feel some dose of this to day. I'm very happy for you to care on therapising me. And ant to be guilty of throw t trying to, like, britishly throw the ball back into your court. It's certainly a kind of an anxious way to live. But places happiness and fulfilment and a sense of peace of mind always in the future and never where you are right now. i think there is something sort of irredeemably toxic in modernity that is the cause of all this.

“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.