Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts

by Oliver Burkeman

one main tenet of imperfectionism is that the day is never coming when all the other stuff will be ‘out of the way,’ so you can turn at last to building a life of meaning and accomplishment that hums with vitality.

‘Most successful people,’ as the entrepreneur and investor Andrew Wilkinson has observed, ‘are just a walking anxiety disorder, harnessed for productivity.’

The essential trouble, as Rosa tells it, is that the driving force of modern life is the fatally misguided idea that reality can and should be made ever more controllable – and that peace of mind and prosperity lie in bringing it ever more fully under our control. And so we experience the world as an endless series of things we must master, learn, or conquer.

The greatest achievements often involve remaining open to serendipity, seizing unplanned opportunities, or riding unexpected bursts of motivation. To be delighted by another person, or moved by a landscape or a work of art, requires not being in full control. At the same time, a good life clearly isn’t about giving up all hope of influencing reality. It’s about taking bold action, creating things, and making an impact – just without the background agenda of achieving full control.

The truth, though it often makes people indignant to hear it, is that it’s almost never literally the case that you have to meet a work deadline, honor a commitment, answer an email, fulfill a family obligation, or anything else.

The only two questions, at any moment of choice in life, is what the price is, and whether or not it’s worth paying.

It was a central insight of the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre that there’s a secret comfort in telling yourself you’ve got no options, because it’s easier to wallow in the ‘bad faith’ of believing yourself trapped than to face the dizzying responsibilities of your freedom.