#555: The Liberation of Cosmic Insignificance Therapy — Oliver Burkeman

This special and very short episode requires some back story. Cal Newport, bestselling author of Deep Work, was the first of several people to recommend a book to me called Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman (@oliverburkeman). I recently read the book, devoured it over several days, and captured hundreds of Kindle highlights in the process. It’s quite unlike anything I’ve ever read, and one of my favorite chapters was “Cosmic Insignificance Therapy.” Even by itself, this chapter left me with a profound sense of calm that lasted several days. In short, I loved the book, so my team reached out to Oliver to see if we could publish this chapter on the podcast and blog, and here we are. You can find the full text of the chapter over at tim.blog/cosmic. The author, Oliver Burkeman, can be found at OliverBurkeman.com, and you can follow him on Twitter @oliverburkeman. And last but not least, huge thanks to Macmillan Audio for providing the audio. This episode clocks in at around 20 minutes, so my hope is that you’ll revisit it often when you need a moment of Zen. Enjoy! For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast. Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday. For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts. Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books. Follow Tim: Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss  Instagram: instagram.com/timferriss Facebook: facebook.com/timferriss  YouTube: youtube.com/timferriss Past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Gr