I have always resisted anything that smells a bit self-helpy. Perhaps it’s because I’m pretty content with my pretty average, relatively low-stress life, where days seized and squandered pass in fairly equal number, attended by tides of frustration or mild satisfaction. Thankfully, as readers of Oliver Burkeman’s old Guardian column already know, he’s a self-help sceptic, too. He doesn’t trade in magic bullets or revelatory hacks. Indeed, he rejects the premise that life can be somehow mastered and the implication that, until we manage get to that point, we’re still half-formed.
Floundering is living, too, Burkeman explains. And if there is any key to success, it’s giving up altogether the quest for super-productivity and rejecting the nagging impulse to get on top of things. Instead, we’d all be happier and more productive if we did what we could – and no more – while embracing our imperfections. Now that’s the kind of pep talk I can get on board with.
