I read “Four Thousand Weeks” by Oliver Burkeman heading into this year and felt like it was a life-changing book. Six months later, the lessons in it haven’t stuck around quite like I’d have liked.
This is a comment more on how effectively I apply things from books vs. the quality of the book—I still very much think it’s great.
One idea still sticks around though. Routines are important and relationships are important—but you don’t get to control other people’s routines.
If you intend to build relationships with other people, you need to let go of the idea that you can maintain a perfect routine. You have to surrender a bit to the chaos of other people’s worlds.
Which brings me to this quote in ”Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making“ by Tony Fadell:
You can poke around to find the advice and stories that are most interesting or useful in your current career crisis. Because there’s always a crisis—either personally, organizationally, or competitively.
In many cases, your job is to find the next crisis to solve. It’s the whole “at least it keeps us employed” thing.
Don’t think that happiness only exists when every crisis in your life is solved. That state is probably a long way off.
Happiness exists along the way there.