We labour at our daily work more ardently and thoughtlessly than is necessary to sustain our life," wrote Nietzsche, "because to us it is even more n… - Oliver Burkeman

[W]e’re living in a world with effectively infinite inputs—emails you could receive, demands that could be made of you, or ambitions that you could have. Getting better at moving through them is not going to get you to the end of them, so the promise of reaching a point at which you feel on top of everything is flawed on a math basis from the beginning.

It is alarming to consider how many major life decisions we take primarily in order to minimise present-moment emotional discomfort.

There is an alternative: the unfashionable but powerful notion of letting time use you, approaching life not as an opportunity to implement your predetermined plans for success but as a matter of responding to the needs of your place and your moment in history.