Kylie Lang: The meaning of life and how we spend our time

None of us knows how long we have on this earth. Life could be snatched away at any minute, but what we do next matters, Kylie Lang writes.

Kylie Lang touches on loss and the meaning of life.

None of us knows how long we have on this earth. Life could be snatched away at any minute.

Some of us may get a warning in the form of an alarming health diagnosis while others are wiped out in an instant, such as from an accident, a crime or an unexpected heart attack.

We’ve read a lot about death of late – the passing of Steven Munster, father of our mighty Maroons’ skipper Cameron; of actor Julian McMahon; of journalist and RSPCA champion Michael Beatty; and of those three poor relatives of mushroom murderer Erin Patterson.

Patterson’s parents-in-law Don and Gail Patterson and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson could never have known the tragedy that lay waiting in those beef Wellingtons.

The more than 120 victims of devastating floods in the American state of Texas this month could never have predicted the timing or manner of their demise.

I’ve been to two funerals recently – of men who were in their prime and should have had many good years ahead of them.

Queensland Maroons captain Cameron Munster lost his father Steven Munster just before Game 3 of this year’s State of Origin series. Picture: Instagram

And the reality hits home that death awaits us all.

It’s just a question of when.

But more than this, it’s a call to action. While I dislike the phrase, living your best life, because it’s become a hackneyed hashtag by every poser on social media, the sentiment has merit. If something isn’t working, change it.

A few months ago my mum gave me a copy of Oliver Burkeman’s book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals.

She liked the book so much herself she figured her daughter might find it useful too.

I’m a bit embarrassed to admit I’ve only now just read it – how’s that for time management?

The British author says the average human lifespan is “absurdly, terrifyingly, insultingly short” – if you make it to 90, you get almost 4700 weeks.

The average Australian lifespan is 83 years – 81 for men and 85 for women – and as Burkeman says: “It’s hard to imagine a crueler arrangement; not only are our 4000 weeks constantly running out, but the fewer of them we have left, the faster we seem to lose them”.

Most people are terrible at managing their time, which is somewhat ironic when technology was meant to give us more of it.

Julian McMahon passed away this week. Picture: Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP,File

We have dishwashers, microwaves and apps for anything and everything yet we complain that we are busier than ever.

Burkeman says we are chasing a “future oasis of relaxation” we hope to find once our tasks are finally out of the way, however this approach can only backfire because it pulls us out of the present.

The reality is we won’t have time for everything we want to do, or others want us to do, so we should stop beating ourselves up for failing.

What matters is making hard choices and deciding what to focus on and what to neglect.

But, as Burkeman says, we humans excel at pretending life is not finite.

“Rather than taking ownership of our lives, we seek out distractions or lose ourselves is busyness and the daily grind,” he says.

This is accompanied by rampant impatience. Our intolerance for delay is evident in road rage and the number of seconds we are prepared to wait for a web page to load.

“It has been calculated that if Amazon’s front page loaded one second more slowly, the company would lose $1.6bn in annual sales,” Burkeman says.

The loss of Michael Beatty proves how short life can be. Picture: AAP image, John Gass

Incredible, isn’t it? We are letting impatience win. It’s probably why I didn’t think I had time to open Burkeman’s book until now. You can’t rush reading.

I’m glad I practised patience and got to the end.

Here, Burkeman provides 10 tips for embracing our finitude.

I won’t divulge them all because that might deny you the privilege of reading them for yourselves, but consider this one: consolidate your caring.

In this age of 24/7 connectivity and exposure to an “unending stream of atrocities and injustices”, the demands on our time to care about too many things are overwhelming.

They’re greater than we can handle so it’s better to understand that in order to make a difference we must focus on our “finite capacity for care”.

Consciously pick the causes – and the people – you care about and spend what’s left of your 4000 weeks on them.

LOVE

The classy concession speech by Blues’ captain Isaah Yeo after Wednesday’s State of Origin decider. Yeo singled out Maroons’ skipper Cameron Munster: “The week you’ve just had, mate, it’s an incredibly brave effort, and you can tell the boys rallied behind. You did a phenomenal job.”

LOATHE

The previous Labor government’s pandering to the militant CFMEU. Failure to sanction the union anti-corruption expert Geoffrey Watson SC describes as “ruthless” has not only ruined lives of those unfortunate to have dealt with it, but has driven up construction costs impacting us all.

Kylie Lang is Associate editor of The Courier-Mail.

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Originally published as Kylie Lang: The meaning of life and how we spend our time