I have a weekly calendar that sits on my desk which I use to keep track of my daily tasks.  It helps to visually break down my life into just a week at a time, somehow giving me the illusion of control, I suppose.  But almost every Sunday I’m amazed how quickly I find myself tearing off another page as my life just seems to fly by.  And after reading a new book by Oliver Burkeman, I’m even more aware of the passing weeks and how limited my time truly is.

Burkeman has calculated the average lifespan as a mere 4,000 weeks (assuming you live to age 80).  Yes, that’s right, 4,000!  And if you want to blow your mind, calculate, like my husband did, how many of those weeks you have already lived and how many you have left! In doing so, Burkeman, throughout his book, makes the point of how important it is to use our time wisely.  What I love about the book, Four Thousand Weeks Time Management for Mortals, is that he stresses using the time more mindfully, not more “productively.”  He points out that our obsession with busyness and cramming more in a day actually takes away from our enjoyment of life. In reality, the race to do more is actually a way of avoiding making difficult choices and feeling the discomfort of grieving the things we don’t have the time to do.  

I just came back from a trip during which I was lucky enough to see the ancient ruins in Athens, Greece.  In viewing these stone relics, I couldn’t help but take notice of how quickly one civilization built its empire, was conquered, and then was replaced with another. And within each of these eras, just like we do today, the people of that time longed, loved, and created within their own 4,000 weeks.  In looking at the faces of the statues able to be preserved, you can’t help but see yourself.  Take off the robe, give them some skinny jeans and an iphone, and they would fit right in, sitting in a Starbucks today.  And if you pull back to the larger timeline of civilization, we are closer in time to one another than we tend to think.  The first modern humans appeared on the plains 200,000 years ago.  And our planet came into existence 4.54 billion years ago (give or take 50 million years).  And our planet is just one of 400 billion planets in the Milky Way alone.  

The contrast of how short a time we have and how insignificant our lives are in the big picture of the universe can be a useful paradox.  While counting our 4,000 weeks can make us feel pressure to use them profoundly, we can also use this information to relax.  It almost seems silly to think about our 4,000 weeks as much of anything of significance within the long scale of time and the breadth of the universe.   As Michael Singer, author of The Untethered Soul puts it, remembering that we are just a rock floating in space among billions and billions of other rocks can help us put our worries in perspective. It can help us let go of over valuing what bothers us and lessen its power over us.

Indeed, finding the balance between feeling the significance of our lives and the insignificance of our place in history can be daunting. But in fact, it ‘s also freeing to think about what really matters and allow ourselves to do more of that and less of all the other atuff.  You and only you will know about the real significance of your life, and even then, it will all be gone soon enough.  Instead of rushing around packing your day with more, slowing down and doing less may be a blessing.  We get a brief sliver of time to witness our world and engage in its beauty.  Our 4,000 weeks is truly a gift for us to be a part of this particular moment in history, with all its magnificence and triviality.

Tearing off my weekly page is taking on a spiritual element now.  A big take away from all of my historical contemplation is to not only ask myself “did I get everything done” in the week that just passed, but “was it worth it?”  Did I make the most of how I wanted to use my time?  Oh, and another take away from time spent engaging in history?  If you do want to leave something of yourself that will last well beyond your 4,000 weeks, best to build it out of rock!