Articles tagged as "happiness"

Over the past few months, I finished Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman. Solidly in the self-help category, this book was more a reminder than a lesson, but one important takeaway that I had was around the paradox of choice. Even in a world of abundance, we still face the key constraint of time, and this single element of our lives inherently limits the scope of what we can achieve. The term “paradox of choice”, first popularized by Barry Schwartz in a book by the same name, has even more significance in a world that is digital, fast-paced, and rooted increasingly on comparison and expectation. We all know and recognize that it impossible to live a perfect life, yet we may be tempted to maximize our life to the best of our ability. We do this against a backdrop that feels like a never-ending series of choices. I could be doing so many things right now, how can I possibly know that writing a blog post is the best action to take.

Every week, it seems like there is a new book published on how we can do better. “Stolen focus” by Johann Hari says that the solution is to get rid of distractions. “Atomic Habits” by James Clear lays out concrete methods for how we can accomplish the things we set out to achieve. “How Not to Give a F*ck” by Mark Manson offers relief by positing that none of this matters anyway in the face of death, and so the solution is to stop caring altogether. These books are all popular, enjoyable, and offer valuable insight, however I was looking for something more fundamental and grounded in science. As someone who is approaching a life milestone and exiting graduate school, I wanted to see if the lessons of others could teach me anything about what I should plan to do next.