One Week In

We’re now one week into living the imperfect life. This is the first of a handful of notes I’ll send to all those who registered for the event—both those reading the book and those planning to use the conversation with Oliver as their jumping off point.

The aim of the notes will be to help us keep momentum leading up to the event on March 12. I might share a brief passage from the book, a reflection on one of the chapters, or something else. The goal is to keep the ideas and themes from the book turning over in our collective mind. When we gather together in March, my hope is that these notes have helped spark discussion points and questions for Oliver.

I’ll share these notes on Friday to help send you into the weekend, when there’s more time to reflect on these kinds of ideas. You can expect about one note per week, leading up to the event in March.

Today, I wanted to share a passage from Chapter 7, “Let the future be the future: On crossing bridges when you come to them.” It struck me as particularly timely guidance.

Burkeman writes:

"Certain forms of human finitude are easy enough to perceive: our limited amount of time, for example, or our limited ability to control how others act. But it can be harder to notice one of the most significant ones—the way we're hopelessly trapped in the present, confined to this temporal locality, unable even to stand on tiptoes and peer over the fence into the future, to check that everything's all right there. . . .

The main way we try to resist this horrifying state of affairs is by worrying. What is worry, at its core, but the activity of a mind attempting to picture every single bridge that might possibly have to be crossed in future, then trying to figure out how to cross it? . . .

Just because certainty about the future is off the table, though, it doesn't mean you can't feel confident in your abilities to deal with the future when it does eventually arrive. As the celebrated Stoic emperor Marcus Aurelius reassures readers of his Meditations: 'Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.'

You could say the worrier gets things exactly backwards. He's so terrified that he might not be able to rely on his inner resources, later on, when he reaches a bridge that needs crossing, that he makes superhuman efforts to bring the future under his control right now. In fact he should devote less energy to manipulating the future, and have more faith in his capacity to handle things once the challenge actually arrives.

If it arrives, that is. Marcus's phrase 'if you have to' is a useful reminder that most of the bridges we worry about never end up needing to be crossed at all."

Live in Oceania, Asia, and similar time zones? We’re considering hosting a separate book discussion at a time more convenient for you all (to complement the recording of the conversation with Oliver). If this is something you’d be interested in, please let us know here.

Keep your eyes peeled: Tomorrow, I’ll share a collective “Spark File” where we can begin to record our thoughts, comments, and questions as we go. More on what a Spark File is and how it works soon.

Wishing you a great weekend,

Evan Nesterak
Editor-in-Chief