The Importance of Patience

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

In an accelerating world, patience is transformed. It becomes a kind of a form of power because everything in our environment and technological culture is sort of happening in the service of rush. The ability to not give in to the discomfort of letting things take the time they take is actually a way to gain purchase on the things that you're doing. To be able to read long books without feeling so uncomfortable that you distract yourself after the first couple of pages or stick with projects that might take longer than the culture feels that things ought to come to fruition.

Read the full transcript here.

How can we leverage our own limitations? Why does converting the average human lifespan from years to other units (like weeks) give us such a shock? What are the most useful kinds of reactions to contemplating our own mortality? What causes our feeling that time speeds up as we age? What is the "importance trap"? How should we handle the frustration or disappointment caused by our inability to do everything we want or need to do? Why is patience important in the world today? What information sets are available to us in various communication media? Is there — and should there be — a disconnect between the "meatspace" world and the internet world? Which kinds of self-help advice are actually useful?

Oliver Burkeman's new book is Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, published in the US on August 10, 2021. He is the author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking, and he wrote a long-running weekly column on psychology, productivity, and self-help culture for The Guardian newspaper called "This Column Will Change Your Life." His writing has also appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and New Philosopher magazine. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. You can pre-order Four Thousand Weeks and sign up for Oliver's email newsletter "The Imperfectionist" at oliverburkeman.com or find him on Twitter at @oliverburkeman.

Staff