In his mega-bestseller Four Thousand Weeks, Oliver Burkeman showed that the finitude of life “isn’t a reason for unremitting despair, or for living in an anxiety-fueled panic about making the most of your limited time. It’s a cause for relief.” In his follow-up book, Meditations for Mortals, he invites us to embrace what he calls “imperfectionism.” Accept your limitations, your finitude, your lack of control — because “the more we try to render the world controllable,” he warns, “the more it eludes us; and the more daily life loses … its resonance, its capacity to touch, move and absorb us.”

This episode first aired on October 31, 2024, but it wasn’t Oliver’s first appearance on the show. Back in 2022, he sat down with our curator Malcolm Gladwell. You can find that conversation here.

💬 LINES WE LOVED:

“Turning towards the limited situation in which we find ourselves is ultimately freeing, energizing, and conducive to meaningful productivity.”

“Getting on top of all your to-dos is impossible because there's always a bigger space of things that we could do than things that we're going to be able to do.”

“Everything is either a good time or a good story.”

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