The Infinity Illusion
How To Break Through The Illusion And Live with Intention
When I was reading ‘4000 weeks’ by Oliver Burkeman, I was struck by this notion that we are constantly evading, avoiding, escaping the finitude of reality. We do this mentally by projecting ourselves again & again into the future to re-live the same experiences. We also escape by simply not prioritising, multi-tasking and remaining convinced that we can do everything at some point.
Though the concept of finitude can feel depressing, there is a silver-lining to this dark cloud. When we confront the finitude of time, of the 24-hour day, or the 168-hour week, we are put in a position of choice: How do I choose to spend this time?
If we stay delusional, and try to convince ourselves that we can just fit it ‘all’ in, then we don’t need to make any decisions, and this paradoxically leads us to act on auto-pilot and somehow feel tricked that everything didn’t fit into our schedule.
Finite Time
We seek to avoid confronting finitude because it feels painful. We don’t want to acknowledge that within our lifetime, we are limited both by our time, and energy and we won’t be able to do everything.
This is a way of thinking that I am very familiar with. As an overly enthusiastic person, filled with multiple interests, and always curious to try something new, I used to find it challenging, and endlessly frustrating that I somehow could not ‘fit in’ Singing classes, Piano & Guitar, Tai Chi, Dancing Ballet, Watercolours & Oil Painting, Yoga sessions, Badmington, Training for a Triathlon, Improve my Swedish, Reading, weekly Hikes, Kayaking, Socialising, Spending quality time with my family, all while building a thriving business, supporting others, and getting enough sleep and exercise (and yes all the above are interests of mine and I probably forgot some).
For a while, I simply would try to fit a bunch of stuff in. Here were the consequences: constantly feeling that I wasn’t present because rushing to the next thing, not enough break time in between activities, not really enjoying anything but always going somewhere else afterwards, feeling scattered & unclear, constantly feeling behind and always ‘lacking time’.
Until one day, I realised that I simply had to acknowledge that time & energy & attention are limited resources. We can do A LOT in 168 hours per week, but we cannot do everything.
On Liberation & Choice
Once I sat down to confront my limited 168 hours per week, I designed my ideal week with time slots for work, exercise, hobbies, social life etc.
This is when I could actively ‘see’ that many of my interests simply couldn’t fit within my week, and this forced me to prioritise.
Prioritising is a somewhat painful exercise, as it requires letting go of certain projects, illusions, hopes, and aspirations. It also requires acknowledging your own limitations, which we often prefer to ignore.
As I confronted finite time, I wrote my top 3 priorities:
Health: Mental & Physical
My calling & purpose
Relationships
The questions I asked myself over & over again were:
What is a must?
What is something that I am no willing to let go of?
What makes my life meaningful?
What nurtures my energy & soul?
Health was the first pillar because strong mental & physical health supports everything I do. This entails that before adding anything else in my week, I prioritised: 8 hours sleep, healthy nutrition, meditation, daily exercise, and walking. For me, this is the bare minimum to keep me functioning, and having high energy levels.
Calling: my mission, purpose, and calling through the work that I do is more than a job. It’s a fundamental aspect of my life. This meant that a very large chunk of time & energy goes to it, and also that part of my free time is dedicated to constant learning, growing, and reading. This brings a lot of joy to my life.
Relationships. The very essence of life is built through relationships: family, friends, social circles. Relationships are an important and vital key to fulfilment.
Prioritising Interests/ Work
Analysing these three areas, it roughly translated into: a couple of hours in the morning dedicated to health, all day to my purpose, a bit of evenings and weekends to relationships (very roughly).
Now, what about all the other hobbies, and interests?
Once I was clear on what truly mattered, it was easier to see that if I only fit in one hobby per week, that was still nice, so what I did is I dropped some interests completely and chose to rotate other hobbies. I would go to singing classes for 6 months, then go to a drawing class for 3 months, then take piano classes again for 3 months etc. Because I couldn’t do all of them at the same time, I did one at a time for periods of time, and went back to them.
Let’s be clear, this is not how you get very good at any of these interests, but the only areas that I really want to excel in are linked to my calling: coaching, training, speaking and writing. All the other interests in my life are hobbies, entertainment, creative expansion & outlet, exploration, new perspectives. That’s where that initial clarity on what really matters has such an impact.
This absurd hobby analysis (especially given how little I do actually engage in hobbies, 90% of the time, all I do is exericse, work, read, and socialise) can also be applied on a work level.
In my business, I also looked at all the core areas, broke down which ones mattered, made a difference to the business, and eliminated/ outsourced the rest. This is a ruthless process.
If we don’t go through this process in our work, especially as business owners/ entrepreneurs, we risk believing we can do it all, and end up working around the clock and burning out.
Ultimately the choice we have is the following:
Option 1: Pretending we can do everything, trying to squeeze in everything, working and hustling day & night, and burning out
Option 2: Admitting that we can’t fit everything in, ruthlessly prioritising with crystal clarity, and taking the massive actions we need to take.
After giving option 1 a shot for long enough, I realised that there was maybe something in this option 2.
The reason we don’t prioritise? Because it’s an effort. We need to stop and think: ‘Right out of this whole list of things I think I should/ must do, what comes first, and what can I eliminate?’
When we get better at this, we also learn to say no more often, because we anticipate that certain things simply won’t fit in with our other priorities.
The irony in all of this? The more we acknowledge and accept our finitude, and no longer believe in the illusion of infinity, the more space we have. Instead of feeling behind, getting caught up in unimportant matters, we are able to weigh the opportunity costs of our decisions, live with intention, prioritise clearly, and make progress in areas that truly matter to us.
The solution to finitude doesn’t come from the illustion of infinity but rather from acceptance of our limitations, and conscious choice of how to spend these precious stretches of time that are available to us. Quality of time we spend matters more than what we do in that time.
Thank you for reading,
Enjoy the journey,
Katie