5 Questions from Four Thousand Weeks

I started off the new year by finishing the book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman. The final chapter included these five questions:

1. Where in your life or your work are you currently pursuing comfort, when what’s called for is a little discomfort?
2. Are you holding yourself to, and judging yourself by, standards of productivity or performance that are impossible to meet?
3. In what ways have you yet to accept the fact that you are who you are, not the person you think you ought to be?
4. In which areas of life are you still holding back until you feel like you know what you’re doing?
5. How would you spend your days differently if you didn’t care so much about seeing your actions reach fruition?

Also, “It doesn’t matter if answers aren’t immediately forthcoming; the point, in Rainer Maria Rilke’s famous phrase, is to ‘live the questions.’ Even to ask them with any sincerity is already to have begun to come to grips with the reality of your situation and to start to make the most of your finite time.”

As we start a new year, best wishes in your approximately 4,000 weeks on Earth!