Why You Wake Up Feeling Behind (And How to Fix It) | Oliver Burkeman

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Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Dad Podcast where on the weekends we do a deeper dive

and how to get better at our most important job being a parent. Sometimes in these episodes I

talk to best-selling authors and elite performers and other guests but lately I've also been having

conversations with my wife Samantha the co-parent of my two boys. We do it over in the Daily Stoke

studio here in Bastard, Texas. She and I talk about things that we're working on as parents,

things that we're working on as people and how we are supporting each other, challenging each

other and like I said trying to get better at what we do. Guest or not I hope you hear some ideas

here that will help make you a better parent. I was better for having the conversation. I hope you

enjoy. Just as nothing tests your stoicism quite like having kids nothing tests any of your

philosophical or religious practices quite like having kids because as a parent right there's just

like always more that you have to do. As work we've got to do for our kids, we've got to work,

we have our house, we have our marriage. It's easy to feel like you're behind like you're just doing

a terrible job and that feeling of just like starting on your back foot which you know I've had

every day for 10 years is something I talked about with Oliver Berkman. I don't know if you know

who he is. He used to write for the Guardian. He had this great column called this column will change

your life which turned into his massive bestselling book 4,000 weeks time management for mortals

and then he has a new one called meditation for mortals which I really enjoyed. Also he came out

to the podcast and talked because he is also a dad and we talked about that feeling of being on

your back foot. How it can shape your mood, your day, your ability to be a good parent before

it even started. I wanted to share this here on the podcast because I think it really relates.

I know I've heard from some of you about feeling that exact idea and if we can loosen that emotional

grip of it, I think it'll make us better at what we're doing. As I said, Oliver's work is amazing.

You can follow him on Twitter and Instagram at Oliver Berkman. You can grab sign copies of

meditations for mortals and 4,000 weeks at the Pinn and Porch and you can listen to the full

episode of this podcast over on the Daily Stone Podcast or you can watch it on YouTube because it

just went up and people have been loving it there. So thanks to Oliver for coming out. Let's get

into it. So for the last seven, eight years I've been driving Ford F-150 and I put some

miles on this thing. We're driven across the country multiple times. We're driven to Florida multiple

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Would you ever wake up like and you had a dream about like your spouse and you're just like

angry like or they're angry with you it's kind of like that like it's clear you got in some sort of

emotional place or vibe that like you have to do some real work to get out of because the thing

that you're upset about is not real right you know you're like you just did this horrible thing to

me in my mind and I know it's not real while I was asleep it was real and now I'm having the

and that there's probably a metaphor in there and you're just like you're having the impression

of feeling that whatever but it's not actually true yeah and so you made it up so you have to

kind of work yourself out of that and I think you can do a like a life version of that too like

you wake up and you're like everything shit or I'm behind or like you can wake up in an emotional

place that is not based on anything you've had time to experience right right yeah no absolutely

but it's real for you in a sense and so it needs your attention yeah and you can you can certainly

make it real by how you treat people right so it's like if you immediately pick a fight with

your kids yeah or you go straight your inbox and you're you decide to take this that or the other

personally like the world will oblige you if that's how you want to feel today right because it's

it's all the overlay that you're putting on things right I mean the back foot feeling is is

definitely something I write about a lot but the other sort of side of that it's the same point

really is just I used to have this sense and I occasionally will fall back into it these days of

time sort of these kind of tranches of time that I'm sort of moving through in my life so that I

see if I can convey this properly so like I would be working and it would be my turn to do school

pick up at 330 and then from 330 till like after dinner that's I'm going to be focusing on parenting

and as the as 330 approaches it's like this thing is moving towards you through the day

it's like in some sort of like James Bond movie or something right the walls of the room again

smaller and smaller and I would get more and more sort of stressed about the time running out

and resentful of this thing that I have to do but also like most days I really enjoy doing that thing

yeah certainly it's very very high up in my values of what I want to give my life to

and it's just the fact of relating to time in this particular sort of finitude is a problem

way that that sort of defines that upcoming thing as as uh as something to be moan

because yeah somewhere in the back of my mind or in some like pre-unverbal part of my unconscious

there is this assumption that it shouldn't be the case that tradeoffs are involved

yes yeah you're just arguing with the reality that you can't do two things at the same time

right well I think about that and that's why I was saying like the key is just to say no to things

because it's like okay so if I get resentful when there's like things in the calendar but I also

understand that like life is things you have to do did I eat up the patience that I have with

that because I agreed to this call and this meeting and this thing that could have been an email

and then so you know I'm like okay this is my publisher I gotta be nice you know or I

this is I gotta talk to the accountant about this thing or you know this person really wanted to

just hop on the phone for three minutes even though I they've done this to me before and it's

ever three minutes and it never actually needed to happen so I did all that and then 330 comes

along I got to pick up my kid and now I'm like what the fuck will anyone let me work you know and

it's like yeah right I should be polite and accommodating and patient with the one thing that I like

doing and actually matters and is by the way totally my responsibility which is you know picking

them up from school and having fun together yeah but before that yeah I've used it up on a bunch

of trivial yeah and so it's like when I pull up my calendar and there's not much in it I'm like

today is a great day you know and when it's when it's there's a bunch of things I'm like you know

and so part of it I think is just like the decisions you made beforehand yeah so you're not having

to use like your zen mastery of your emotions to deal with this situation that was right you voluntarily

put yourself into right and I think what yes I mean what what that brings up for me when I think

about that is like first of all I think like isn't it crazy because we are both in a situation

through great fortune where we really can decide to say no to lots of things that come in and it's

not going to be calamitous and people are going to understand and yet maybe it's different for you

but the the weird stuff from childhood of like my sort of got to be like obedient to these different

like yeah and the way you can give like basically everybody in the world some sort of a strange

quasi parental authority of you absolutely disaster there's this really fascinating exchange that

Sennaka talks about where he tells a story about Alexander the great so Alexander the great wants to

to conquer some territory and you know he's been so successful that the leaders of that country

come together and they go they call him meeting with him and they go like look if you don't attack us

we'll like we'll give you this part you know and and Sennaka quotes Alexander going like I didn't come

all the way across the world to take what the leftovers you're willing to give me he's like I'm

going to take what I want and give you the leftovers now obviously this is brutal horrendous idea

but Sennaka is using it as a metaphor analogy to go this is how we have to think about philosophy

and self improvement etc that you don't like commit yourself to all these professional goals and all

these activities and all this stuff and then you give the little bit leftover to meditation

philosophy reflection quiet stillness whatever you want to call it it's it's the other way around yeah

that's the main thing yeah and then you can if you have anything left over that you can spare you

can give it to this random phone call or whatever yeah and so he's basically just saying that we

have it precisely backwards that and most people myself included have some dynamic version of this

dynamic at home which is like you promise the bulk of your time to professional things and then

you give your kids the little bit left over the office is closed today I can hang out with you or whatever

and then we go but I do this all for my family my family's my number one prayer and it's like the

calendar doesn't lie yeah it's the exact opposite revealed preference yes yeah absolutely yeah no

I agree and I struggle with it all the time of course and that's that's what really struck me

is that like I don't want to say no to something it's bad even when I really don't want to do like

I remember I was CCed on some email once someone had asked someone I knew to do something and the

guy just responded hard pass and I was like wow I love it you know like if I could ever do that

I would be so proud of myself but he was not just no it's like not interested at all but we

we find ourselves not wanting to be rude to these people yeah but you'll be really rude to a

nine-year-old they have no say like yeah like the consequences for the nine-year-old is what they're

going to think when they're a 39-year-old yeah that's a long way away so you're not thinking about that

you know so you're like yeah sure I'll do this thing yeah and I mean I think I'm better saying

no to things than I than I used to be but it doesn't get easy and again and again I'm amazed by

how okay people are with it in certain contexts because in certain contexts they were just

having to go see if you were interested yes I've even had a few contexts where because of the

stuff that I write about where where people sort of respond with relief because it's like if you'd

just done this then like I might not have been living your philosophy and I would be testing you

but they're like they're like actually Kissinger has this thing about he's like at early on in your

career you're you're worried that you're boring people and then you get to a place of power

influence and they worry about boring you yeah yeah and and like you get to a place if you're lucky or

if you've talked about these things where then you say no stuff and the people are like I'm so proud of

you well I wish that if you had seen the the ringer that you just put me through you would you

yeah not be so proud and maybe you could have just not done it in the first place yeah right

I had a doctor like six people to get them to confirm that I shouldn't do you know yeah yeah

and then the other thing that never seems to get easier is the complete impossibility of properly judging

how long anything will take anyway right so there are plenty of occasions where I say yes to things

and I know all of this stuff about saying no and I'm like right but I'm taking a sober decision

this is 20 minutes of my life and of course it of course it isn't yeah yeah right right you agree

you think oh it's one hour talk but you got to fly there the night before and then you got to fly

home and so it's like wait I just I just that was a 36 hour commitment that I just did there's a lot

to be said I mean so well-known thing but there's a lot to be said for that question for asking

yourself whether you would whether you'd be looking forward to it or say yes to it if it was

happening tomorrow or today when you're dealing with things that are a year or two out I find that

is very good for surfacing like oh no I can exactly imagine the mindset I'm going to be in the

night before this yes this thing so maybe listen to that hey thanks for listening to the daily

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