Is the productive life the meaningful one? Probably not.

I’ve been in and out of bed with a strange and lingering virus for nearly a month.  Being sapped of energy and cloudy-headed has forced me to face my very real limitations, while deepening my well of compassion -- both for myself, and so many humans who suffer from chronic conditions.  And while it’s been exhausting to feel daunted by the staircase and fuzzy-headed with my colleagues, there’s also a certain beauty in the constraint. 

Downtime, rest time, and sick days have always been a struggle for me; intellectually I know they’re important, but slowing down can be accompanied by a haunting fear that I’m wasting time or not getting enough done. 

Always playing in the back of my mind is a tired, old narrative: “Am I making the best use of my time now? And, now? And, now?”

If I’m honest, I’ve lived much of my life feeling that being productive somehow justifies my existence as a human; like, if I’m not producing, am I even here?   

Of course, the irony of now writing about “what I learned when I was forced to stop doing” is not lost on me ; ) But I’m hardwired to want to share what I’m learning, so I’ll roll with it!

As modern life accelerates, so does our sense of overwhelm at the sheer volume of things -- how much we should be consuming, learning, doing -- and, how much more we’re missing out on.  But amidst the swirl, there’s a hollowing or a thinning of my actual experience; it can feel like I’m overwhelmed and underwhelmed at the same time.

We imagine the real value of our lives is in the future: “When I A/B/C (get married, have kids, accomplish the thing), I can X/Y/Z (be happy, relax, start my real life).” And yet, how many times do I have to learn that as soon as I succeed in getting the thing I was sure I needed, the goal post moves? 

But by postponing our fulfillment -- and hitching it to some made up story about getting more done  -- we’re guaranteed to miss what’s ultimately most fulfilling: actually being here, now. 

While I languished, I listened to Oliver Burkeman’s new book, Four Thousand Hours: Time Management For Mortals, whose insights felt like a serendipitous stroke of existential relief.  When Adam Grant praised this as “the most important book ever written about time management” I assumed he was being hyperbolic.  But after decadent hours immersed in Burkeman’s wise narration, I totally agree.  

Burkeman calls B.S. on hustle culture (read: busy-ness rebranded as virtue) and the vicious productivity trap: “The day will never arrive when you’ve finally cleared the decks and finished the tasks and can finally turn to what life is really about.” The mirage that that day exists keeps us hovering outside of our lives, using the present as a means to get to an imagined future. But by optimizing every minute to make the most of our time we miss being present to the time we have. 

As Pema Chodron reminds me as often as I remember to remember: We can’t be present and run our storyline at the same time. 

Here’s the thing.  We are mortal.  We will die.  And, if we’re lucky, we’ll get 4,000 weeks (roughly the length of an 80-year life) while we’re here.  My favorite chapter of the book was called Cosmic Insignificance Therapy which cuts right to the chase: “Ultimately, what you do with your life doesn’t matter that much; and when it comes to how you use your time, the universe could not care less.” 

So rather than fearing what I’m missing (since I’m guaranteed to miss out on the vast majority of experiences the world has to offer), or feeling like I’m never quite arriving (note to self: there is no arrival point) the goal becomes unhooking from my concept of time as something I have, and sinking whole-heartedly into the experience of time as something I am.   

For me this means remembering that my “have to do’s” are actually “get to do’s”, and that relaxing my grip on the list itself brings spaciousness and ease.  It also means saying a wholehearted YES! when my husband asks me to check out his new robotic contraption, my 7-yr old wants to play another round of Sushi Go, or my 5-yr old needs help finding number 978 on a 1,000 pointed dot-to-dot.  Finishing this post may feel more urgent or tangibly productive in the moment, but in the cosmic scheme of things is it really?

Rather than lamenting how little time we have, what if we could delight in how astonishing and miraculous it is that we have any time at all?  

Burkeman’s book is a manual for doing justice to “the outrageous brevity and shimmering possibility” of our 4,000 weeks.  

“At the end of our lives, the only definitive measure of using your weeks well is not how many people you’ve helped or how much you got done -- but that working within your moment in history and your finite talents you got around to doing whatever magnificent task or weird little thing that you came here for, and in doing so you made life more luminous for the rest of us.” 

So here I am.  Humbly feeling my way toward what I came here for -- while letting go of what I thought I knew, to make room for what I get to learn next.