Imperfectionism is the stance that says the only thing that really counts is doing a bit of it today, this week. Maybe badly, maybe too little by some standard, maybe with no confidence that you'll ever come back and do it again. Maybe it's just a one-off. Maybe you're not about to develop a wonderfully virtuous habit of writing your novel every single day. But you'll be doing it. You'll be bringing it into concrete reality. It will no longer just be an idea in your head. It will be real. And I think the big problem with a lot of ways that people think about productivity, personal development, spirituality, all sorts of things, is that it actually reinforces this notion like not yet.
Welcome to Passion Struck. Hi, I'm your host John R. Miles. And on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long-form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become passion struck.
I am absolutely thrilled today to have Oliver Burkeman on Passion Struck. Welcome, Oliver.
Thank you very much for inviting me.
As you and I were discussing beforehand, I first discovered you through the popular column that you wrote for the Guardian called This Column Will Change Your Life. Love the title. Looking back as you were writing it, what did you learn about people's biggest struggles with meaning and significance?
Wow, that's a good but a big question. If I'm really honest, that column ran for a long time, more than a decade shockingly. And when I began it, I had pretty skeptical, maybe even borderline cynical motives, right? The idea was there was this whole field of self-help and personal development and it would be fun to test it out, sure, but poke a lot of fun at the sort of dubious aspects of it. And trust me, many years later, I still think there are plenty of dubious aspects to it. But one of the big experiences that I had writing that column was a sort of journey towards sincerity in some ways. Not that there isn't a lot of rubbish masquerading as self-help, but that underlying urge to figure things out, to build a more meaningful life, to spend more of your time doing the things that make you feel the most alive and that matter the most. Like that urge is a good urge. And there are plenty of people profiting legitimately off that urge. But there are also plenty of people and plenty of parts of the culture disdaining the urge itself as if we shouldn't, we should just get on with things or just obviously want the things that everyone else wants. And so really one aspect of writing that column was just to understand how deep this yearning goes and how important it is. And that doesn't mean you can't be amusing about some aspects of it but it's a serious thing. And then I suppose where that led certainly in terms of book before last, 4,000 Weeks, was to focus on the degree to which our limitations and our limited time are a site of this struggle. If we had all the time in the world, it wouldn't matter that these things are difficult because we could just do them later. But we can't do them later, or not indefinitely anyway. So I think figuring out what matters and how to make it actually happen in our lives in the present instead of endlessly postponing it into the future is a big part of that too.
Okay. And I had a follow-on question that takes this to you more personally. You just mentioned your book 4,000 Weeks and in that it really reframed how we think about time, became a New York Times bestseller, a global bestseller. Now, Meditations for Mortals, your latest book, which came out in October 2024, takes it even further almost as a daily practice, which we'll get into as the conversation evolves, for embracing what truly matters. How has your own understanding of time and significance evolved through writing both books?
The first thing to say is that like all of this is on some level just me doing therapy in public on my own issues, right? I think this is probably a near universal truth for anyone who writes books that are books of advice or books about how to build a more meaningful life. This is of interest to me because it has been a thing I needed to grapple with. So one of the things that I've done is I've found that for me the process of bringing these ideas into focus is a very important part of learning to live them. There's a strange phenomenon that occurs whereby, or that I've found anyway, you come with an idea for a book. You come with some useful pointers about something that might be true about the world. Our time is very limited. So, we need to make wise decisions about what to do with it. And we need to be willing to let go of options that are not bad in themselves, but there are just too many of them. And I can have this intellectual notion. But when I try to really explore the issue in writing or in my thinking, my reading, I find that's when I have to actually live it. It would just be too hypocritical and not possible creatively somehow to write a book about this and not at least do what you could to model it. So, I'm constantly tacking back and forth between writing the advice that I need to hear and writing the advice that I have recently followed and found to be useful. I almost can't separate these questions about how have I changed versus what are the books about because it's the same topic. To get a little bit more specific, I suppose I do think I'm significantly less anxious and constantly focused on the future in a worried sort of way than I used to be. I think I'm a lot better at making at least some time in the present for the things that I know I care about most, whether that's my writing or family or spending time in the natural landscapes that we live in here in the north of England. But it's all by comparison to who I was earlier, right? So I may still not be the world's greatest exemplar of it. I think I'm a lot better than I was.
There's so much truth to what you're saying. I wrote my first book, Passion Struck, because I was trying to figure out how do I reinvent myself? Like how do I get from where I found myself, using a Henry David Thoreau quote, I was in quiet desperation, to rebuilding the basic foundation and scaffolding of your life to create one that matters. And it really, as I was writing it, I ended up doing as you were describing, a search by trying out all the principles on myself to find out if they actually worked or not. And as I approach a book, it's always so interesting the structure that you choose for it. And I'm writing a book now. And I was having a conversation last week with Dan Heath, who him and Chip are kind of like the masters of how to structure a framework for a book. And he gave me some unconventional advice. He goes, "Don't lead with the framework. The framework will find the book." And it's an interesting way of thinking about things. I'm not sure I can let go of that completely. But the way that you structured Meditations for Mortals, I thought was really interesting. Why did you decide to frame it as a month-long quote-unquote retreat of the mind?
It was quite a long process. I'm very interested in that Dan Heath advice. I feel like I want you to say more about it, but let me just answer your question first anyway. In the earliest stages, Meditations for Mortals might have been a sort of quote every day for a year or something. And then I was working with two really great editors in the US and the UK and we had various Zoom calls and chewed it over and then it turned into a short chapter for each week of a 52-week year and it still wasn't right. And I was writing bits of it at this time and I had various sort of pieces to slot in but it just, there was something it wanted to be is how I experienced it. Sounds a little bit pretentious or something, but I was trying to discover what this was supposed to be rather than deciding what it would be. And I think what it wanted to be was 28 short chapters, each easily readable in 10 minutes with a coffee or on a commute to work or something. Again, with the invitation that this could be a four-week engagement by the reader. Obviously, I can't control how people read a book of mine that they obtain. That's none of my business on some level. But that by approaching it like that or at least just having the idea of approaching it like that in your mind, it becomes something that you can weave into, fold into your daily life, right? I didn't want it to be the kind of book where I was implicitly saying here's a great complicated new system for changing your life completely in a few months' time when you finally get the bandwidth and you're really prepared to give it your all you can put it into practice. No, I wanted to say here are tiny little thoughts that might detonate in an interesting way and a helpful way and make a real change like in your life right now in the middle of having too much to do in the middle of having 50,000 unanswered emails or whatever because I think in my experience that is how meaningful change happens, right? It happens right here where I am in a way that doesn't require me first to get everything under control because everything is never under control. So I guess the idea of a retreat of the mind as well is just that it's not a retreat where you have to clear your schedule and go and find a month to sit in a cabin in the woods or something. Although you're welcome to engage with the book that way, but it's more just like there could be some little bit of your brain, some little sanctuary in there that was taking shape through the course of an ordinary overwhelmed scattered month in anyone's life and maybe some of these ideas would be quietly taking root in real time as it were. So that was the thinking and I also wanted to share and collect a whole bunch of interesting quotations and insights from other people so that, and there is one at the beginning of each week and one at the beginning of each day of each week. So some of that sense of a book of quotes remains in the finished product.
I'm glad you did because one of the things I am told by reviewers of my book the most is they talk about the quotes that I included from other people and tell me how much it strengthened it. So I think that's a really good use of the wisdom of other people to frame the days, frame the weeks, etc. The book in some ways reminded me of Mark Nepo's Book of Awakening where he went through 52 days or 52 weeks with every single day a kind of a different thought for you to read and practice. So it had that type of feel to me. But getting back to Dan, when I try to think of a new book, and I read a lot of books, I think about what gets the message across the best. And so I can't, not sure why this isn't showing up, but I'm holding up The Let Me Theory by Mel Robbins. And yeah, I've recently been finishing that book up, but before that I was reading Revenge of the Tipping Point by Gladwell and Start with Why and I read Dan Heath's most recent book, Reset. So I've been looking at a lot of the ways that these books frame topics. And so to me before I write, I always like to look at what's worked for other books based on what you're trying to convey and the sense of urgency you're trying to give people. Do you write a longer book, a shorter book, a punchier book? What type of voice do you use in it? And I guess what Dan was trying to tell me is I'm getting too hung up in that. Although he was impressed that I was even thinking about it so deeply and I should get more into trying to frame my message. And his best piece of advice is as you're writing your book, focus on the fundamental question you're trying to solve. And that's where he was saying the framework will come out of that as you get further into trying to solve that problem.
And that's really apt in my case too actually, the way you put it there, the way he put it, because yeah I didn't really talk about this in my last answer but I was trying to solve this problem of how do you make change actual, how do you do the things that you already know you want to be doing in your life. It's not about discovering your purpose, it's about implementing your purpose. How do you actually get this to unfold in reality? And this sort of 28-day structure was an answer to that question although I didn't really realize it at the time. I think in my case to do a 365-day book, they can have wonderful, there are some wonderful ones, but that would not have been what I'm talking about because that's sort of, that's a big mountain to climb or it's a coffee table book that you refer to when you feel inspired. But one month, one month is a good amount, like it's a solid amount of time but you can see the end from the beginning. It's also not too big and so it does, the structure ended up helping to answer this question about how you actually really do things but it wasn't necessarily conscious at the time.
Well, I can appreciate that and I want to dive into the book and I want to start with this question, Oliver. Many of us are waking up especially in today's digital world where we just feel the weight of endless tasks and we want to try to control them as much as we can and keep up with the pressure to keep pace with everyone and everything around us. But you challenged this notion calling it a bit of a mirage. And I just did a solo episode last week on the mirage of more. I used a biblical theme because I was talking about the story of Moab in the book of Ruth. We're constantly chasing Moab instead of chasing Bethlehem analogy. But why do you think we struggle so much with this idea of letting go?
I think at the very bottom of it all, there's something about the human situation, the fact that we die, the fact that our time is finite, the fact that we don't choose where or when or to whom we're born, all the rest of it, that just feels very uncomfortable. It creates in us a desire to feel in more control than we are. And one of the ways that we attempt to achieve that sense of security of being properly in charge of our lives is by getting on top of everything, is by getting every single conceivable task handled. It's pretty obvious that's not going to happen, especially in the modern world, but in some sense at any point in history, right? We've always been these creatures that are able to conceive of infinity effectively, infinite number of things to do, infinite possibilities. But we're in material physical bodies and in a particular point in time and a particular point in space. And there are various different traditions that have different answers to this, right? And obviously various different religious traditions suggest that the reason we have this ability to taste or touch infinity is because on some level we do belong in some realm or dimension that is greater than our finite lives. But still right now at your desk on a Monday morning, there's no reason why just because you can think of something and feel like it needs doing, there's no reason that you'll have enough time to do it. There's this sort of radical mismatch between the hours we have in a day and the sort of endless number of things we can feel like we ought to get done that day. And it's not only about quantity, right? This applies to how well we do our work. It applies to how well we understand what's going on in the world. We're limited in all these ways that make us, I think, very uneasy. And broadly speaking, my answer to all of this is the thing that maybe makes my books diverge from the productivity mainstream anyway is that I don't say here at last is the system that will enable you to do every single task that you can think of. But rather I try to say yes, you're right, there's far too much and there'll always be far too much. And because there will always be far too much, in a sense, the concept of there being too much doesn't really make any sense. You're just a finite human swimming in an infinite ocean of possibilities. So clearly, your job here on this earth is to make a few wise choices and to pour your time and energy and attention into a handful of things that really matter. We can talk about what really mattering means. And if you think that your job is to get your arms around the whole thing, or to drain the ocean, to continue that metaphor, then you've just made a mistake about what it is to be a finite human. It's not that you haven't yet found the productivity system or the previously untapped reserves of self-discipline that are going to cause you to get to this summit. It's that's not what it is to be wholeheartedly human. So, I think at first glance, it's a depressing message, right? Because if you're deeply invested in the idea of doing everything or exerting total control in some other way, I'm a bit of a buzzkill coming along and saying that it can't be done. But I think it's actually a really liberating and empowering message because to whatever extent you can give up fighting the fight to be in control of everything or to be a god, you might almost say, to that extent, you can really engage in the project of being a full human being and do a lot of good and meaningful and interesting things with your life.
I want to piggyback on what you just said because the reality is we live in this time of infinite distractions. I refer to this as the disease of disconnection and it's really hard to make tradeoffs about where to put your time and attention. This is what you really write about and it's something I think about a lot. One of my favorite pastors when I was younger was this guy, Pastor Terry. And one of the best sermons I ever heard him give was on the Stephen Covey topic of the main thing about the main things, keeping the main thing. And he talked about your watch and or your calendar and your wallet are where you invest your time. But it really has led me down this profound thought pattern of how do we choose what really matters when everything competes for significance? And so I'm going to go back to what you brought up earlier, like what for you is the definition of what truly matters?
I've found as I spend more time thinking and talking and writing about these things that this answer gets more and more intuition based and harder to put into a list as I go. So I think I resist in my writing delivering the list, right? Everyone knows that rich social and rich relationships, work that feels like it's making a difference to the values that you care about, time spent in nature, time making time to be playful as well as goal focused. Everyone knows that these are the ways we want to spend our lives. And then many people would also definitely add a sort of a spiritual or a faith dimension as another sort of absolutely central part of things. But so when I've given you that list, right? The challenge is not knowing what is on the list. The challenge is doing those things instead of, as you say, being relentlessly distracted by technologies and other things that are designed to steal away our attention. So I've moved gradually away from this question of do I have the right things on the list and more towards this kind of felt sense of is what I'm doing now have that feeling of vibrancy, that feeling of aliveness that seems to accompany anything that matters. Something that made a big difference to me in my life was a quotation that I've reproduced many times from the therapist James Hollis who suggests asking of a life choice or of a way of life or something whether the choice you're following or proposing to follow does it enlarge me or diminish me. And it's a really powerful question I think because it sidesteps the question of does something make me happy or not which is a very odd and hazardous area. We're very bad as humans at predicting what's going to make us happy. We all have that sense of meaningful moments in our lives where we were not happy, like they weren't pleasant, but we know that we were doing the right thing. There's that deep sense that most people have of maybe helping a friend through some crisis or something. And it's not because you're even being called upon for your great wisdom, right? You might be doing their dry cleaning while they navigate a terrible time in their lives or this might be a terrible time that you've endured yourself and when you're helping that person like that this is a thing that you're on the planet to do even though it's not fun. And the flip side of that would be there's plenty of things we do all the time that are fun in some way, but it's cheap calories, right? When it's done that, then it wasn't really a meaningful way to spend your life. And we probably all need a bit of that in our lives. I'm not really condemning it, but so I think there's that very specific kind of feeling which is oh yeah this is something that counts for my use of time on the planet. I think the other, just quickly, the other thing that's been really important for me is to see that in choosing something, in choosing to focus on a relationship or an activity or an organization, you're not saying that the other ones that you're putting aside are bad, right? You're not saying that I've figured out what matters and everything that I'm neglecting doesn't matter. There's too many things that matter for that. So in the end, you just have to follow your gut, follow your heart, and pick a few things and try to be at peace with the fact that there are things, the friendships that you're not investing in while you invest in a few other friendships, that it's not because those people are terrible. It's just because choices have to be made, right, Oliver?
Thank you very much for that. It reminds me of one of the quotes from your book. It's by William James, and he wrote, "The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook." And I have to say when I look at this own question which I have pondered more times than I would like to admit my viewpoint really changed after a conversation I had with Dacher Keltner who you may be aware of and we were talking about his book and what really struck me were two words that he brought up, moral beauty. Like when he found through all his research that the time we experience awe the most is when we either perform or witness acts of moral beauty. And what I loved about that is then awe doesn't have to be something that you only find in these rare moments when you see a masterpiece or a birth of a child or something like that. It can be found in the everyday actions that we observe and that we make to make the world a better place is the way I interpret moral beauty. I love the phrase. So I want to go back to the book in which you introduce the concept of imperfectionism which feels like a radical shift from the culture of optimization that we live in. How does embracing imperfection actually help people feel like they matter more?
Ultimately, I think it's because what I call imperfectionism, and this is, you talk about frameworks, this is just a label for the general philosophy that I'm putting out in this book. It could have been a different label. I think that what it means to me is it's a way of engaging with the world that helps you take action in the world, right? Because you're not holding out for the future moment when you're in control of everything or you've got your arms around everything. You're not holding out for the future moment when you really finally feel like you know what you're doing as a spouse, as a parent in your work life. And because you're not chasing that kind of perfect security, perfect control, perfect level of merit, you're actually able as a result to plunge into life. Now, the problem with the sort of standard approach to these things is that we endlessly postpone the point, the part of life where meaning is finally going to come along to this hypothetical moment when we know what we're doing and control all the rest of it. And so it's essentially impossible for meaning to exist and to blossom in the present that way. So you know if it's the difference, if creative writing is part of what is deeply meaningful for you just to give a sort of obvious example then imperfectionism is the stance that says the only thing that really counts is doing a bit of it today, this week. Maybe badly, maybe too little by some standard, maybe with no confidence that you'll ever come back and do it again. Maybe it's just a one-off. Maybe you're not about to develop a wonderfully virtuous habit of writing your novel every single day. But you'll be doing it. You'll be bringing it into concrete reality. It will no longer just be an idea in your head. It will be real. And I think the big problem with a lot of ways that people think about productivity, personal development, spirituality, all sorts of things is that it actually reinforces this notion like not yet. First of all, you've got to fix yourself. And I think ultimately that just postpones meaning endlessly into the future.
