Four Thousand Weeks

What will you do with yours?

Dear Friends,

Parenting is hard. Marriage is hard. Writing is hard. Growth is hard. Striving to be the best version of myself for my dearest friends, extended family, and colleagues is hard. The most important aspects of my life are the hardest. I do not think I am unique in this truth. The ironic part is that the hardest areas in my life that stretch me the most are also the ones that I value the most.

When I am at the end of my life, my self assessment on whether or not I lived a truly good and worthwhile life will be based upon my judgement of how I showed up in these roles. Have I done right by my children and my husband? Are my relationships with each of them one where they have felt loved, accepted yet appropriately challenged, seen, understood, supported, appreciated, and celebrated for who they truly are? Have I brought to life my unique purpose in service to something and someone greater than myself? Have I embraced the areas within myself that needed to evolve, and have I also expanded myself in order to take full advantage of this one wild and precious life I have been granted. These questions I will ask myself.

I will also reflect on whether or not I was wise enough to embrace the fact that another sacred component of life is to simply be present to joy. I will contemplate whether I was clever enough to awaken to an entirely different narrative than what is constantly peddled as The Way: running exhaustively, never catching up, laboring to achieve and attain more, more, more. Will I have been smart and brave enough to refuse forsaking the beauty, the wonder, and the miracle that unveils itself only after stepping back, slowing down, and doing what truly lights me up — and doing it without the guilt of “I should be doing more in this moment.” I hope so, as that would be a real coup d’etat in living a great life.

What I know for sure is that the most enjoyable and meaningful times in my life are when I have given myself permission to step off the merry-go-round of what I need to get done and instead step into presence with that which fills me up and makes my heart sing.

Spending time with my children, hiking with my dogs, surfing shortly after dawn, reading a book in the sun, working in my garden, writing, taking walks with my husband, and traveling as a family are the things I would like to allow myself the gift in which to indulge much more often. These experiences are the most enjoyable times of my days, weeks, months, and years, without a doubt.

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Recently I read Oliver Burkeman’s book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management For Mortals and learned that we have on average 4,000 weeks to live. That’s it! ~ 4,000 weeks. Let us not waste them on what does not matter as Oliver so succinctly posits in this Guardian article.

Another insight to consider is this. Decide, as in “decide what is most important for you to spend your 4,000 weeks doing,” comes from the latin word decidere. The etymology for decidere is the combination of two words: de which means ‘off’ and cadre which means ‘to cut’.

To cut + off = decide!

To decide literally means to cut off everything except the things that matter most. So I ask you, what is most important to you? What do you need to cut off so that you can say yes to more of what brings the most meaning to your life? Once you are clear on that, dare I suggest, consciously architecting the life that you can look back on when you are close to the end and smile, knowing that you fully seized your opportunity and you lived according to what truly matters to you when it is all said and done.

With great affection,

WRW