It does seem that patience is reduced now. You know things like Twitter right things like TikTok where you get these kind of incredibly short videos shown out one after another. I think what's going on there is technology brings us closer and closer to the feeling that we might be able to be gods with respect to our time. It seems more and more outrageous that we are these sort of material objects in the world and run up against other material objects and have to wait for them.
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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.
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