Recently, I have been thinking extensively about what I want out of life and how I'd like to be remembered. Instinctively, I always feel the need to be 'productive' and focus on improving each part of my life to reach my full potential, as well as 'living life to the fullest' through having as many amazing experiences as possible, however I have come to realise that this mentality is a trap and as I've gotten older I've spent a lot more time trying to establish what my priorities actually are and which investments are worthwhile. This isn't to say that I have all (or any) of the answers, but I wanted to share my thoughts on this topic and perhaps some of my deliberations could help others too.
The final push to actually write this post was a YouTube video by a favourite creator of mine, which inspired me to read 'Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals' by Oliver Burkeman. As a forewarning, the majority of this post is based off quotes from this book and my opinions on them. There are two main themes I want to discuss in this post: the first is 'hustle culture' and need to constantly be thriving in all areas of life, the second leads on nicely from this and is the idea that people spend too much time trying to reach the 'next step' without actually enjoying their lives and focus on things that don't matter rather than figuring out what does and investing time and energy into those.
The productivity trap
I have always looked at the big picture and am acutely aware of how short life is and what matters; Billy Joel's 'Vienna' is one of my favourite songs (I would highly recommend looking up the lyrics if you haven't already - it explores the haste to achieve great things without realising that you'll never feel satisfied), Oscar Wilde's 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' is my favourite classic, and I would like a tattoo based on Sylvia Plath's 'fig tree' analogy, which I will explain further later.
I have had phases in my life where I've been immensely panicked by the idea of death and although that has led to me seizing more opportunities and traveling more, it has also made me become overly 'productive' and unable to properly relax without the idea that I could be spending that time in a 'better' way. Regardless, it has helped me to have many hobbies including reading, going out with mates, learning new skills and trying new sports - I’m never bored and I’m very proactive. When everyone was bored out of their minds during lockdown and school holidays I always found things to do, whether it be painting, cooking or planning trips. From a young age, I always understood that life is very short and you really had to be a go-getter to do everything you want to do in this world instead of sitting back and waiting for things to happen to you.
I've definitely fallen into the productivity trap, with my calendar booked up months in advance without a thought of whether I will actually enjoy it or something may come along that's more fun nearer the time. Instead, I'm pursing everything in an attempt to have a 'fulfilled' life. I think that growing up in London has definitely made me worse for that as everything was always available to me so it feels more like missed opportunities if I don't spend as much of my free time being busy, such as exploring the tourist sights, visiting the free museums, going to the theatre and concerts, and enjoying the latest trendy restaurants and bars.
I found an excerpt from my notes during lockdown which demonstrates this: "I am constantly torn by how to spend my time as there’s so much that I want to do and enjoy doing and yet I can’t figure out the best use of my time outside of work. For example, at the moment I am almost a third of the way through war and peace whilst also learning to skateboard, learning how to do a handstand, and completing a python course. At the same time I’m trying to finish Grey’s Anatomy and spend time with my family. Luckily we are in a lockdown right now so travelling and going out and seeing friends are all out of the question, and yet I’m still struggling to find enough time in a day to do everything I would like to. Do I actually enjoy these things or does it just make me feel productive? There is a certain rush to experience as much as possible while we’re young, as if as soon as you’re over 25 years old your life becomes work and nothing else. However, through my LSE course in South Africa and my Master's (both of which had students that were older i.e. in their mid 20s/early 30s) I realised that actually this isn’t the case, and in fact many of those in their late 20s are actually living a seemingly ideal life and hope is not all lost."
This reflects my inner monologue accurately, although it's important to note that even the LSE course and Master's were done in an attempt to 'make the most' out of life. I even felt slightly overwhelmed by my Bucket List as it felt like there was not enough time to complete all the items and that I had to rush through it. Reading 'Four Thousand Weeks' taught me to let go of the idea of wanting as many experiences as possible in this one life as the experiences available nowadays are infinite. Life and travel are not tick box exercises and it's important to think why you are doing what you're doing and what the end goal is.
In Burkeman's book he states:
"Even an undertaking as seemingly hedonistic as a year spent backpacking around the globe could fall victim to the same problem, if your purpose isn't to explore the world but, a subtle distinction this, to add to your mental storeroom of experiences in the hope that you'll feel later on that you used your life well."
This is exactly how I feel with travel, and although I genuinely love travelling and gain a lot from it, I definitely reached a point during uni where I was actively only visiting countries or regions that I hadn't previously been to rather than revisiting places I knew I loved. This was an eye-opener for me and I have since worked hard to enjoy both, revisiting my favourite places a couple of times a year, whilst maintaining the novelty once or twice a year too. After all, "travel is transformative because it's hard", so it is definitely still worthwhile, as long as you are genuinely taking in the culture and politics of a place, instead of just staying in a resort the whole time and eating home foods.
Another excerpt from the book that stuck out to me was this:
"The more we can accelerate our ability to go to different places, see new things, try new foods, embrace various forms of spirituality, learn new activities, share sensual pleasures with others whether it be in dancing or sex, experience different forms of art, and so on, the less incongruence there is between the possibilities of experience we can realise in our own lifetimes and the total array of possibilities available to human beings now and in the future - that is, the closer we come to having a truly 'fulfilled' life, in the literal sense of one that is as filled full of experiences as it can possible be. So the retiree ticking exotic destinations off a bucket list and the hedonist stuffing her weekends full of fun are arguably just as overwhelmed as the exhausted social worker or corporate lawyer. This helps explain why stuffing your life with pleasurable activities so often proves less satisfying than you'd expect."
I could not relate more to this and it was such a comfort to see what I'd been deliberating over written so eloquently for all to understand. Being busy is seen as a good thing in society and we are rewarded for productivity and chastised for laziness - even when asked how you spent your weekend by your colleagues, it's expected that you'll have done something 'worthwhile' or 'exciting'.
Learning to enjoy life
I'm very organised and 'productive' but I've come to learn that there's no true benefit in living life in this way. Instead, it becomes a never-ending slog; the house is never going to remain spotless, I am unable to be incredible at everything so instead it makes more sense focus on fewer things and actually enjoy them. I used to want to become a marathon runner and a CEO, visit every country, be charitable, be a good mum etc, but it's impossible to do it all. Instead, you have to make compromises and it's simply delusional to think you can manage time in a way to do everything. Malcolm Gladwell popularised the idea that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at anything, so it is impossible to be the 'best' at everything, especially at a young age. Burkeman states:
"You feel, 'once I've got my degree, or invested sufficient years into honing your craft, or found your soulmate or had kids or once the kids have left home etc that's when you'll be in control at last, you'll be able to relax a little bit and true meaningfulness will be found."
But no, there will always be something else to work for, a sick family member to look after, another property to buy, another country you haven't visited.
Burkeman continues: "By doing everything you're making the choice to not focus on what is most important. Rather than taking ownership of our lives, we seek out distractions, or lose ourselves in busyness and the daily grind, so as to try to forget our real predicament.
We invariably prefer indecision over committing ourselves to a single path, because the future, which we dispose to our liking, appears to us at the same time under a multitude of forms, equally attractive and equally possible. In other words, it's easy for me to fantasise about, say, a life spent achieving stellar professional success, while also excelling as a parent and partner, while also dedicating myself to training for marathons or lengthy meditation retreats or volunteering in my community - because so long as I'm only fantasising, I get to imagine all of them unfolding simultaneously and flawlessly. As soon as I start trying to live any of those lives though I'll be forced to make trade-offs - to put less time than I'd like into one of those domains, so as to make space for another - and to accept that nothing I do will go perfectly anyway, with the result that my actual life will inevitably prove disappointing by comparison with the fantasy."
So whilst I'd be able to focus on training for a marathon for a few months, being the best parent I could be would become the priority at other life stages, and work will always have to be a priority at different points in order to keep rising through the ranks. But you are never going to succeed fully at everything simultaneously. Stop chasing the never-ending end. Develop a sense of patience. Enjoy the process of growing - if you start at the top, you've got nowhere to go so life becomes meaningless and dull. More than that, each phase of life has different challenges and benefits, as a junior you may have financial constraints but you can be more carefree and have a wider circle of friends; as you progress through the career path, you are expected to act more professionally and as you create a family you have a time-constraint so perhaps are forced to spend less time with friends.
The idea of trying to be everything at once rather than choosing a direction to follow is extremely reminiscent of Sylvia Plath's analogy on life (which struck me so much that I want to get a tattoo related to it): "I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."
In reality, there's no single, definite way to do life. If you want this, religion can be a great thing to turn to as it provides a lot of direction in how one 'should' live. Everyone lives as they can. On the contrary, Oscar Wilde, who is one of my favourite writers, said: "If you want to be a grocer, or a general, or a politician, or a judge, you will invariably become it; that is your punishment. If you never know what you want to be, if you live what some might call the dynamic life but what I will call the artistic life, if each day you are unsure of who you are and what you know you will never become anything, and that is your reward." I've since learnt not to plan my whole life out as that's not how life works and there's also a sense of excitement in the unknown.
I recently read an article in the Financial Times by Janan Ganesh which was relevant and I'd highly recommend reading. In summary, he states that many young graduates go into intense careers, working over 100 hours a week in the hopes of delaying gratification until an early retirement, and that this is the "easiest life mistake to make". He goes on to emphasise the uncertainty of this reward, and the overestimated joy that will come from it even if it does happen: "there is no certainty at all of being around to savour any hard-won spoils. The career logic of an investment banker (or commercial lawyer, or junior doctor) assumes a normal lifespan, or thereabouts. And even if a much-shortened one is an actuarial improbability, a sheer physical drop-off in the mid-thirties is near-certain. Drink, sex and travel are among the pleasures that call on energies that peak exactly as graduate bankers are wasting them on work."
The article concludes with: "The enjoyment of life is a skill. The idea that it can be switched on after decades at the grindstone underrates the force of human habit. Thinking of the retired or semi-retired workhorses I know, it is telling how structured and deliberate their recreations tend to be. The wine venture, the competitive sailing, the art-dealing: these are corporate-style projects by another name. The talent for doing nothing, for succumbing to the moment, was never developed. Perhaps this is what “born” A-type personalities would be doing anyway. Just as likely, it is the conditioning that starts with those 20-hour days as impressionable youths. If so, Goldman’s alleged snowflakes are understating their case. Pleasures deferred can be pleasures foregone."
This article hit home for me and although I realised that money wasn't everything a few years ago now, I think it motivated me further to define what success means to me and what I want out of life. I remember during third year at uni, my friends revised 24/7 and refused to socialise much, and I distinctly remember feeling that they were wasting their youth revising far more than was necessary and making exam periods become months of hell, rather than revising for a few hours each day but also ensuring to have fun and socialise throughout the revision period. A great analogy I read for what to prioritise in life was to write down your eulogy and thus how you'll want to be remembered, as this will indicate what values you hold. The people who care about you won't talk about your job title or what you looked like, they will remember how you made them feel and how you treated others. This is truly what you should focus on achieving and becoming. Burkeman states: "It finally dawns on us that, shockingly, no one really cares what we're doing with our life. No one really cares except us. The attempt to attain security by justifying your existence, it turns out, was both futile and unnecessary all along." I have found that the people I've met who grew up with very 'successful' parents (often dads who are partners at their law firms or banks) are often the ones who have a minimal relationship with said dads as they were never around growing up due to the pressures of their jobs so they never developed a relationship with their children; it's a heavy price to pay for professional success; stay tuned for a post on the correlation between wealth and happiness.
Those who are extremely ambitious (often 'type-A' individuals) often realise that they may have prioritised the wrong things far too late. Burkeman states: "People yearn for true leisure, not a different kind of productivity. the right to be lazy, not as a reward." During covid, people spent more time with family, reading books, playing board games, going for walks - simple things that brought them more joy than the extravagant things they'd become accustomed to - and yet, people have just as quickly reverted to their old ways.
The last point from 'Four Thousand Weeks' that I'd like to touch on is the idea that it's better to do less exciting activities with people you love, than great things alone. I somewhat disagree with this as, especially as a student, I wanted to create new memories, visit new places and try new things, whereas most of my friends weren't as excited by this or didn't have the means to do it, so rather than waiting around on others, I went out and made these things happen for myself, which I think is absolutely necessary at times and a great thing for everyone to try. On the other hand, life is all about relationships and having unlimited holidays means nothing when none of your friends are free to join you. Instead, having fewer holidays but being off at the same time as others is so much more valuable.
In fact, the concept of time as we know it is only as a result of the Industrial Revolution; time went from being perceived as task-oriented to time-oriented so time became 'spent' instead of 'passed'. Clocks were made and trains had to be on a schedule so that factory workers could get to work 'on time'. Parkinson's law is that "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion", which is also why many managers have learnt that they should give give tasks to busier people as they are more likely to quickly fit it in, as opposed to someone who isn't busy who will instead use their whole day on this one task, leading to less efficiency.
In summary, it's impossible to achieve everything at once and there's a certain excitement in letting go and seeing where life takes you. It's important to focus on the relationships in your life, be grateful for what you have, and consider how you want to be remembered - will pursuing your 'dream' career actually make you happy? Simultaneously, by not making decisions about what to invest your time in and where you want your life to go, you have made a decision in itself and as you try to maintain a fantasy of becoming everything you could possibly be, you instead watch your life pass you by.
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