4,000 Weeks

“Hey, Cousin! Come over here, lemme hug yer neck!”

In case you are wondering, that is what bubbled up when I launched into this week’s edition of “Thoughts.” That is the greeting that I have received for the last 30 years from the patriarchs and matriarchs at the Harrison Family Reunion, which has taken place on the first weekend in July every year since 1898(!) in the community of Stony Hill, North Carolina.

That my wife Jill is of the Harrison Family matters little when it comes to me being a “cousin.” By the rules of the Harrison Family, if one marries a descendant of Bryant Macon Harrison and Mary Ida Ray Harrison - who tied the knot in 1897 and proceeded to have 12 children, 10 of whom lived to adulthood - you are a “cousin.”

I am glad I am called “Cousin” at the Harrison Family Reunion because it gives me license to call everyone else “Cousin.” Because when there are 125 to 150 descendants of Bryant Macon and Mary Ida roaming around, and you only see the vast majority of them once or twice a year, everyone’s name is not ingrained in your memory bank. There is about a 30% chance that their last name is not “Harrison” because 3 of 10 children that Macon and Mary had were females (Iva, Livian, and Kathleen) who took their husbands' names. Thus, it is much easier and much less stressful to just look at someone, smile and say, “Hey, Cousin!”

All of this brings me to this week’s main topic, which is the finitude of life.

(How is that for a transition!)

I just finished one of the best books I have read in a while – 4,000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman. I admit that I am a sucker for self-development books, and anything that hints at “time management” in the title sends me into a Pavlovian response, whereby Jeff Bezos rings a bell, and I order a book on Amazon.

(I did debate for a millisecond whether this book was meant for me, given the “for Mortals” part of the title. After looking up the word “mortal” on Wikipedia, I discovered that I qualify.)

The title of the book is a bit misleading. This book is much more about a philosophy of time and how time relates to your life. The first thing Burkeman does is encourage you to think about the fact that each of us is granted an allotment of time on this earth and that, given the current state of the world and nutrition and modern medicine, the average person on earth today has a lifespan amounting to roughly 4,000 weeks.

Now, the denialist in me immediately started doing the math and got a little depressed.

You mean to tell me, Oliver, that I have less than 600 weeks to go on this earth?

Hey, Oliver, you might only get to live to age 77, but yours truly (Rich Perkey) is going until the age of 99! Our wonderful financial planner told me so! I saw, right there on paper, that if I forego buying a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup today, that in the year 2056, Jill and I will be able to close out our JP Morgan-Only-Bank-Left-In-The-World checking account with a zero balance, having written the last check to Del Boca Vista Phase 2 Retirement Community, having donated my means of transportation to “Astro Vehicles for Assholes,” given that “Kars for Kids” was outlawed by President Swift for using music to irritate the sensibilities of humanity. Instead of only having 586 weeks to live, I have 1,734 weeks left to “spend”! 

But of course, that attitude – that I have all the time in the world at my disposal – is exactly my biggest productivity problem.

Among the many great points that Burkeman makes is that by embracing the fact that there is a limit (i.e., finitude) on our lifespan, we appreciate its preciousness. And that, when overlayed on how we define our purpose in this world, can help us better address the life’s priorities.

The other concept that was thought-provoking to me was Burkeman’s view on trying to squeeze more into the day. The reality is that time is not an instrument for us to use; time is something in which we exist.

So – stop thinking you will get to a point in life where you have gotten everything done to perfection. To hear Oliver twist the tale of time – that ain’t going to happen.

So – stop thinking that when you get all these things done, you will arrive in nirvana and exist forever more in a state of bliss and happiness.

That ain’t going to happen.

What we can do is live more in this moment – basking in the love of the Harrison Family, being in awe of the amazing assortment of lives emanating from a tobacco farmer and his young wife who wed 125 years ago. We can partake in the bounty of the dessert table (OMG, it is amazing the confections concocted by Harrisons!) We can bask in the love of lives present, and lives lost.

We can do a better job of living and loving now versus in some idealized end state that is a figment of our imaginations.

It has been less than a week since I finished Oliver Burkeman’s book. My only regret is that I didn’t read it 2,582 weeks ago when I was 16.

(Excuse me, please, I need to go finish this segment of “Housewives of New York,” as there is a whole new cast this season!)

See you next week!