Saving Time

by Jenny Odell

An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer. Ehrenreich subjects the wellness and anti-aging industries to withering critique, questioning the monomaniacal project of trying to become a lean, mean, living machine. For her, the product offered7 by a capitalist version of wellness is “the means to remake oneself into an ever more perfect self-correcting machine capable of setting goals and moving toward them with smooth determination.” Citing a long list of books on “successful aging,”8 she observes a cruel dynamic related to the bootstrapper ethos of individual time management: All the books in the successful-aging literature insist that a long and healthy life is within the reach of anyone who will submit to the required discipline. It’s up to you and you alone, never mind what scars—from overexertion, genetic defects, or poverty—may be left from your prior existence. Nor is there much or any concern for the material factors that influence the health of an older person, such as personal wealth or access to transportation and social support. Except for your fitness trainer or successful-aging guru, you’re on your own.