Oliver Burkeman is the author of the New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller Four Thousand Weeks, about embracing limitation and finally getting round to what counts, along with The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking and Help! How to Become Slightly Happier and Get a Bit More Done.
“We are dissuaded from doing things that add great value to our lives just to avoid discomfort.”
For many years he wrote a popular column for the Guardian, ‘This Column Will Change Your Life’. In his email newsletter The Imperfectionist, he writes about productivity, mortality, the power of limits and building a meaningful life in an age of distraction. He lives in the North York Moors.
This episode is particularly special as it is the first that was LIVE on our app, Healthy Living by The Happy Pear!
“We talk about not wanting to settle when we think we can do better… but we end up becoming a commitment-phobe and don’t realise that both of these are settling. One is settling for an imperfect human being and the other is denying yourself the pleasure of and benefits of a long term relationship… this doesn’t just apply to dating and it’s great to realise this so you stop making decisions motivated by this notion of a perfect outcome.”
We had a wonderful conversation with Oliver, and members of the app got to ask their questions too. We spoke about the issues with time management, our inability to be in the present moment, how to achieve more by doing less, how the concept “to settle” isn’t always a negative thing, the importance of leaning into discomfort, amongst many other things.
We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did.
Lots of Love,
Dave & Steve x
To find out more about Oliver Burkeman and his work, check out: https://www.oliverburkeman.com/
Produced by Sean Cahill and Sara Fawsitt