Make Your Damn Bed

CORE INSIGHTS FROM THE BOOK, "FOUR THOUSAND WEEKS": Embrace finitude: Your life is absurdly short (around 4,000 weeks). Stop trying to “master” time; instead, accept your fundamental limitations.Productivity is a trap: Becoming more efficient only creates more demands, leading to perpetual busyness, not freedom.Choice means sacrifice: Every decision to do one thing means sacrificing countless others. True meaning comes from consciously choosing what to neglect.Control is an illusion: You can’t control the future or prevent pain. Releasing the demand for certainty is the path to peace.Attention is life: What you pay attention to is what your life will have been. Digital distractions, often a flight from discomfort, steal your life by commandeering your attention.Rest is not a means to an end: Leisure has intrinsic value and should not be justified by its productivity benefits. Embrace “wasteful” idleness.Patience is power: The ability to let things take the time they take is a crucial skill in a hurry-driven world, leading to deeper engagement and creativity.Communal time is valuable: Excessive individual temporal freedom leads to loneliness. Meaning often arises from synchronizing your time with others.Cosmic insignificance is liberating: You don’t need to make a “dent in the universe.” Accepting your irrelevance frees you from impossible standards and allows you to find meaning in ordinary life.Life is a series of insoluble problems: The “human disease” is the belief that there’s a cure for life’s inherent difficulties. Freedom comes from accepting them.Access the book, Four Thousand Weeks: https://www.oliverburkeman.com/fourthousandweeksThe synopsis of the book, here.Read Julie's Medium Blog.Support JULIE (and the show!)Support + get some bonus stuff over on PATREON.Get an occasional personal email from me: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.comTune in on INSTAGRAM AND YOUTUBE or TIKTOK.Info on War Tax Resistance.Donate to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund and the Sudan Relief FundThe opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. 

We can control our vessel, not the ocean. Life’s default state is a little scary. A little insecure. A little worried. A little vulnerable to the elements. The good news is, those scary vulnerable unavoidable feelings don’t have to be all encompassing and can be made less powerful through direct recognition and balance. The future is still in progress, so I can and should be doing what I can to make it better and more approachable and more enjoyable and more comfortable and more sustainable but I also should not be wasting my one beautiful and temporary life freaking out about everything that could go wrong. Read Julie's Medium Blog.Support JULIE (and the show!)Support + get some bonus stuff over on PATREON.Get an occasional personal email from me: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.comTune in on INSTAGRAM AND YOUTUBE or TIKTOK.Info on War Tax Resistance.Donate to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund and the Sudan Relief FundThe opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. 

I'm slowly realizing that the key wasn't to get "more free time for myself", the key is to get "more free time together". The highlight should be: Communal rhythm. Coordinated leisure. Planned connection. Shared ritual. Access the book, Four Thousand Weeks: https://www.oliverburkeman.com/fourthousandweeksThe synopsis of the book, here.Read Julie's Medium Blog.Support JULIE (and the show!)Support + get some bonus stuff over on PATREON.Get an occasional personal email from me: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.comTune in on INSTAGRAM AND YOUTUBE or TIKTOK.Info on War Tax Resistance.Donate to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund and the Sudan Relief FundThe opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. 

Build your tolerance for "chill" and "ease" by scheduling it. Prioritize doing nothing productive. Seek out ways to create that don't have a "payoff" and make it anyway. My addiction to "motion" to "movement" to constant "stimulation" is normal, daily tasks feel like a physically painful burden. Consider discipline as a form of devotion, not a form of punishment. Access the book, Four Thousand Weeks: https://www.oliverburkeman.com/fourthousandweeksThe synopsis of the book, here.Read Julie's Medium Blog.Support JULIE (and the show!)Support + get some bonus stuff over on PATREON.Get an occasional personal email from me: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.comTune in on INSTAGRAM AND YOUTUBE or TIKTOK.Info on War Tax Resistance.Donate to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund and the Sudan Relief FundThe opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. 

When work became “the real point of existence,” leisure's purpose became for “recovery and replenishment.” This meant the whole of life was valued for something else, in the future, not for itself. Accept that everything is random and impossible to predict. The only part of time that is "our business" is the present moment. Access the book, Four Thousand Weeks: https://www.oliverburkeman.com/fourthousandweeksThe synopsis of the book, here.Read Julie's Medium Blog.Support JULIE (and the show!)Support + get some bonus stuff over on PATREON.Get an occasional personal email from me: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.comTune in on INSTAGRAM AND YOUTUBE or TIKTOK.Info on War Tax Resistance.Donate to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund and the Sudan Relief FundThe opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. 

The human experience is finite, but that is terrifying. So we distract ourselves. We convince ourselves that if we just "do everything perfectly all the time" we can avoid the painful reality of life's limitations. But refusing to make a choice is a choice. Not committing is a commitment.Not settling is settling. There's some shit you'll never get to. There's some shit you'll never do perfectly. But for some things, done is better than perfect. The only way to ensure it gets done is to commit to it. Limit your works in progress and focus on prioritizing things that actually matter. Don't resist all distraction, see if you can choose better ones. Access the book, Four Thousand Weeks: https://www.oliverburkeman.com/fourthousandweeksThe synopsis of the book, here.Read Julie's Medium Blog.Support JULIE (and the show!)Support + get some bonus stuff over on PATREON.Get an occasional personal email from me: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.comTune in on INSTAGRAM AND YOUTUBE or TIKTOK.Info on War Tax Resistance.Donate to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund and the Sudan Relief FundThe opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. 

“A world which increasingly consists of destinations without journeys between them, a world which values only ‘getting somewhere’ as fast as possible, becomes a world without substance.“ - Alan Watts When convenience drains an activity of its meaning, it becomes less valuable. - Oliver BurkemanAccess the book, Four Thousand Weeks: https://www.oliverburkeman.com/fourthousandweeksThe synopsis of the book, here.Read Julie's Medium Blog.Support JULIE (and the show!)Support + get some bonus stuff over on PATREON.Get an occasional personal email from me: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.comTune in on INSTAGRAM AND YOUTUBE or TIKTOK.Info on War Tax Resistance.Donate to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund and the Sudan Relief FundThe opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. 

“Modern industries thrive on offering convenience, eliminating “pain points” or “friction” from daily life. Uber, Apple Pay, and food delivery services smooth out mundane chores. However, this smoothness is a dubious virtue." When convenience drains an activity of its meaning, it becomes less valuable. Access the book, Four Thousand Weeks: https://www.oliverburkeman.com/fourthousandweeksThe synopsis of the book, here.Read Julie's Medium Blog.Support JULIE (and the show!)Support + get some bonus stuff over on PATREON.Get an occasional personal email from me: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.comTune in on INSTAGRAM AND YOUTUBE or TIKTOK.Info on War Tax Resistance.Donate to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund and the Sudan Relief FundThe opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. 

“You pity the moth for confusing a lamp for the moon but here you are confusing a screen for the world.” - JAY ALTO “The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day." - David Foster WallaceDavid Foster Wallace's "This is Water" Speech. Brad Stulberg's The Way of Excellence Substack. Read Julie's Medium Blog.Support JULIE (and the show!)Support + get some bonus stuff over on PATREON.Get an occasional personal email from me: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.comTune in on INSTAGRAM AND YOUTUBE or TIKTOK.Info on War Tax Resistance.Donate to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund and the Sudan Relief FundThe opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.