Daniel Sih

[00:00] Hey there, Spacemakers. I'm Daniel Sih,  here with my good friend and co-host,  Matt Bain. Welcome to the fourth season of The Spacemakers, a podcast to help you live an intentional, meaningful life. 

Narrator

This is The Spacemakers. 

Daniel Sih

This season, we go deeper, challenging our constant self-improvement culture and what it's doing to us.  It's a pod course designed to help you step off the busy treadmill, let go of the constant need for more, [00:30] and make space for a life that is truly enough.  Big thanks to our long time sponsor, Bulk Nutrients, providing high quality supplements at affordable prices.  If you're a new customer, you can enjoy 5 % off your first order at bulknutrients.com.au forward slash Spacemakers. 

Narrator

The Spacemakers with Daniel Sih and Matt Bain.

Daniel Sih

Imagine you began your life with all the money you'll ever have.  [00:58] The instant you're born, you're given one account and any time you've had to pay for something, it came out of that account.  You don't need to work, but everything you do costs money.  Food, housing, water and consumer goods are as expensive as ever,  but now even sending an email requires some of your precious funds.  Sitting quietly in a chair doing nothing costs money.  Sleep costs money.  Everything you do  requires you spend money.

[01:28] But the problem is this, you don't know how much money is in the account and when it runs dry, your life is over.  If you found yourself in this circumstance,  how would you live  differently?  Would you do anything differently?  This is a fantasy, but change one key element and it's not far from our actual situation as humans.  Only instead of money, [01:55] our one account has a limited amount of time. And we don't know how much.  It's an everyday sort of question, how should we use our time?  But because of the brevity and uncertainty of life, it's also a profound question and one that has major implications for our health and happiness.  These words aren't mine. They are from Mark Schultz and Robert Waldinger who wrote a fantastic book called The Good Life [02:24] which is about the Harvard study of adult development.  It's one of the largest, longest studies of human development known.  It started, I think, in 1938 and tracked the lives of a bunch of young people from Boston's poorer suburbs and also Harvard graduates and tracked their lives, their health, and then the lives of their children and now their grandchildren, and I think even great-grandchildren. But the wonderful thing about that study is it starts to look at life as a whole.  And when I read that passage, [02:53] I think it says a lot about the value of time, the value of reflecting on our life, the purpose and meaning of our life, how we use our precious funds,  and how to actually have a sense of being intentional about how you use your life without being anxious about the time you have. And that's what we're going to talk about today. We're going to talk about what it looks like to be finite in a world of infinite possibilities and what it looks like to actually confront the [03:21] the short span of life that we have and make great choices to know that you are enough.  So look, my name's Daniel Sih.  I'm here as part of the Spacemakers podcast with my friend, the magnificent, the one and only co-host, Matt Bain.  Welcome.

Matt Bain

Thanks Dan.  Hi everyone. 

Daniel Sih

That was a very serious answer to my very silly intro.

Matt Bain

Been a while since anyone's referred to me as magnificent.  So it just took a while to sink in. 

Daniel Sih

But we are here talking about [03:50] how to make space for a life that is enough.  That's the topic of our season four pod course.  And this is the second episode, dive into the first if you haven't yet heard it.  But what are we exploring?  Tell us about the topic.

Matt Bain

We're looking at finitude, which is I guess like a slightly fancy way of saying that we're looking at the very real issue that as humans we have limitations.  And to your point, the big one is around time.

[04:18] So our time is limited and also to your point and the, uh, and the story or the example, we don't know how long we've got.  And that is confronting the idea of death and mortality, not to get too serious too early,

Daniel Sih

But we have.

Matt Bain

But we have.  It's challenging. that's why we're looking at how do we live?  How do we live?  Well, in the face of inevitable death and the uncertainty around when,

Daniel Sih

Yeah.  Yep.  And it's a really important topic because what we would like to explore, uh, using [04:45] I suppose the material from 4,000 Weeks by Oliver Berkman, some of the ideas around how freeing and life-giving it can be actually once you start to accept that you can't get it all done  and that you can't possibly fit it all in and therefore, how do you make choices about the time that you have that is available?  So we're gonna talk about that in a very practical sense.  So this is part of a broader pod course, which we call Enough, This Wellbeing is Killing me or This Self-Help Is Killing Me based on a comment that one of [05:14] my clients said after a talk where he literally said, all this self-help is killing me. And this idea that we live in a culture where we're asked to do more and be more and add more and self-optimize and constantly improve ourself with self-help and protocols and hacks and habits.  And many of us feel totally overwhelmed by it all. So how can we live a healthy life and make healthy productivity [05:43] and life choices without adding the burden of having to do more.  That's the topic for this season.

Matt Dain

It's important to say Dan and name it up that a bunch of this particular episode is based on the work of a book that we are both big fans of,  "4000 Weeks" by Oliver Berman. Many people will be familiar with this time of the orders thing came out roughly 2020 - 2021 made a big splash. The title of course is based on the idea the average lifespan is [06:10] four thousand weeks. Doesn't sell out very much, but there it is. 

Daniel Sih

Yeah, absolutely. So we're to talk about some of that. But I had a conversation actually last year with a guy called Dave. I met him actually in Queensland as part of a fathering adventure.  I took my son away and we did some kind of fun father son stuff and  I met him and he's  fascinating, interesting.  He's travelled the world. He's done these amazing adventures. He's quite an inspiring guy.

[06:36] But he read 4,000 weeks and he took it really seriously. The idea that you have 4,000 weeks and so you have to make the most of your limited finite time. And so what Dave did is he bought two large jars and he filled them with crystals, they were just plastic crystals which had different colours representing different weeks of his remaining life. And he showed me a photo of what he did and it's fascinating. So he estimated that he was gonna live [07:05] let's say to 90, okay?  And so he filled up the bottom  of the jar with his later years, I think they were like white or clear crystals,  and each one represented the amount of time between, let's say the age of, I think 75 to 90, which would probably be the time where he's getting frailer or at least less agile, you know, moving into kind of true old age.

[07:30] And then he had a different colour of crystals, I think maybe blue between 65 and 75, where he could still be active, maybe retired, but  maybe not able to do extreme sports like, I don't know, journey into the South Pole, which he did the last year.  And then between the age he is now down to let's say 65, he had those crystals as well.  And so his practice at the end of every week, I think on a Friday every week, he would take out a crystal, which represented one of the weeks left in his precious life [08:00] and he would put it into the other container as in its life used.  But he would just pause for a moment and reflect on whether he had used that week intentionally, whether it had had value, whether it had been a good use of his precious funds or his precious time or not.  And I've thought a lot about that activity and in some ways I've reflected on would I do it myself.  And I think [08:29] I kind of love what he does and I hate what he does for myself.  So I was thinking about what I love about that idea.  I love the idea that you might be so intentional about how you use every week that you actually literally see your life disappearing before your eyes and you literally take care of how you might live.  I think many of us sleepwalk through life and we just live on autopilot and I love that Dave doesn't do that.

[08:58] He's very thoughtful about how he lives and he reflects on the purpose and meaning of his time.  But I think where I struggle or where I would struggle to implement that myself is I think it might give me what authors call time anxiety.  You even read a book called Time Anxiety, didn't you?

Matt Bain

I did, I did.  You said it'd be good idea.

Daniel Sih

Oh, did I?  Well, I never read it. But I like the title.  I think... [09:25] But I know I think it would give me or it's given others this sense of, time is running out and therefore I just have to cling to it. Maybe it might push me into an artificial sense of control, of having to control my time.  And part of it for me is also, you know, I wonder whether there's a bit of a delusion to that in the sense of, I've got a great friend who died at 52 suddenly, you know, he was healthy and then he was dead.

[09:53] So maybe you don't get your 4,000 weeks afterwards after all, and there's some challenges with it.  I don't know. What are your thoughts about the crystal activity and what it says about your life?

Matt Bain

Yeah, I'm intrigued by it.  I wouldn't have the patience for it, I don't think.  And I don't own the jars, so that'd be big issue. know what I mean?

Daniel Sih

All the crystals.

Matt Bain

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's that. But like you, I do respect the intent, the consciousness [10:21] behind it.  I wonder whether it's actually faithful to Burtman's big idea in 4000 Weeks in terms of how he conceives of time.  I'm not certain about that.

Daniel Sih

Yeah look, I agree with you. I've read 4000 Weeks and it's interesting there are apps now where you can kind of measure your 4000 weeks.  It's probably a simple idea.  That is basically the crystal idea on an app.  And I've got people I know who use that regularly and find it really helpful. But for me, [10:51] when I read Berkman, I don't think that that's actually why he talked about 4,000 weeks.  I don't think he was saying we have a limited amount of time, therefore we have to squeeze the marrow out of every single moment we possibly have.  In fact, that almost feels like the opposite of his message.  So I'd be curious, given you've done a deep dive recently back into Berkman's work, both that and Meditation for Mortals, tell me about what you think Berkman's actually saying around 4,000 weeks and why it matters. 

Matt Bain

Yeah, sure. I really like the... [11:20] way that he talks about time  as being conceived by moderns, so people of our  age, as a resource that is external from you, that's outside of you.  So he has this great metaphor of a conveyor belt.  So the modern idea or experience of time is that I'm standing next to this conveyor belt and this conveyor belt is endlessly just pumping out parcels, chunks [11:44] of time in front of me,

Daniel Sih

Which is literally like the crystals, right?

Matt Bain

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.  Just probably like larger, probably more like a standard kind of Amazon package, parcel kind of size, probably not, you know, minute crystals, but nevertheless, these portions, these packages of time getting pumped out in front of me on a conveyor belt.  My job then as an individual is to take those parcels and make some meaning with them, do what I can with them, like use them to the best of my ability, whatever I do, don't waste them. I've got to be a steward of my time.

[12:12] Cause time is an external resource that is outside of me.  He says, again, that is like a relatively recent, if you look at, you know, the scope of history, a relatively recent way of conceiving time.  Instead, like pre-moderns would have thought of time, not as something as outside and external to them, but something that they actually inhabited.  Something that they were part of, that they were like enveloped in and life was rolling out, including time [12:38] around them.  So it wasn't my job so much to kind of like see it as a separate resource that I have to make the most out of.  But instead time would inflow the way that it inflow, it was usually in a call with seasons and patterns and different stages of life.  And so what I kind of had to do with that was a lot more, I suppose, like easily presentable and pre-scripted for me.

Daniel Sih

That makes sense. when I read a book recently, I think it was The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, where John Mark Homer talks about uh [13:07] the changes that occurred in our perception of time, both with the clock and with the light.  And the light was fascinating.  You know, he said, since, you know, I imagine, imagine a world where actually when the sun goes down, it's dark and you can't work and you can't read and you can't scroll.  So therefore you go to sleep and when the sun comes up, well, then you have to make the most of that.  So that's that external shaping of our world [13:36] would have then shaped our view of time as being something that we enter into rather than something we self perceive and self define.

Matt Bain

Yeah, that's it. That's it. And as soon as I self define it, as soon as I see it as outside of me and something like another resource that I had to kind of manage and take control of, it comes that way of conceiving of something comes to the whole bunch of often unhelpful assumptions.  One being, okay, this is like an external resource that I'm expected to manage.  If I can be more efficient, [14:06] and if I can be more optimal in terms of how I steward my time, I can probably get everything done.  I fall into this trap of thinking that if I'm just, again, if I'm better skilled, and usually this is around efficiency and effectiveness, then I can make the most of these little portions of time and I can get them to do everything that I want to do in life.  When Berman's brought a point is that, A, again, we are finite beings and finite beings that find themselves in a world with infinite possibilities.

[14:36] Particularly if you're as kind of, you know, if you're as uh advantaged as we are in terms of having a fair bit of autonomy and discretion over our time, we think we do, and also uh enough of an income to be able to spend that time, spend money on that time and kind of maximizing it.  So we can fall into this trap that again, if I just get better at kind of handling my crystals, then I'll be able to achieve and do everything that is presented to me.  And that's like, that's one of the traps of viewing it externally.

[15:02] His point is that in fact, you would have found this in your life, right?  I mean, I just got thinking about this example. thought, man, this is like made with tea.  If I'm so in your case, let's go with an example for Dan and example for Matt.  An example for Dan would be if I get more and more efficient at responding to my emails, I'll eventually get through all the emails.  His point is no, no. If you get more and more efficient and effective at responding to emails, [15:22] all it means is that you're training people to think, well Dan's a guy that responds.

Daniel Sih

Yeah. And therefore I get more emails.

Matt Bain

You get more emails. Yeah.

Daniel Sih

It's not just with emails, but with everything, you know, those who are more efficient and effective with more projects.  So I like to say you can't outrun busyness.

Matt Bain

Yeah, that's right. That's right.  So there's that side of things, but there's also the more leisure side of things, which is if, if I start to say, you know, well, for my bucket list, I want to like, you know, visit all the Greek Isles before I die.  And I do this deep dive and I researched everything I can about the Greek Isles.  Maybe if I'm lucky, I'll go to every freaking Greek Island, but then at the end of the day, I'll go, Oh, wow.

[15:52] Those Greek Isles or something.  But then in my research, I've discovered there's also like the Isles in Croatia or the Turkish Isles.  So now I feel this pressure to tick them off my bucket list as well.

Daniel Sih

So not only do you bag your 100 countries, but then you have to bag the different experiences with them.  And then you have to bag this and that.

Matt Bain

You find out there's more and more and more. It is literally infinite.

Daniel Sih

Yeah. And look, Arthur Brooks writes a lot on this as well.  And we'll cover some of Arthur Brooks' stuff because he's got some really helpful practices about letting go of attachments, which we'll talk about later in the season.

[16:22] But  he talks in strength to strength about the idea that if you create a bucket list, and I've done this, where you write down, okay, what are the things you'd like to see happen in the next five years, 10 years, 20 years?  Ah but even that can make you miserable because you're actually defining your happiness by what you don't yet have and all the things you could do and all the possibilities that are existing for you.  And then you have to save for those possibilities because those great adventures aren't free  and that saving leads to more time.

[16:50] He, he pushes back against the bucket list and says, actually happiness is found when we have an anti bucket list and when we learn to accept what we have right now and find happiness with the present moment. 

Matt Bain

Yes.

Daniel Sih

So we're going in circles, but  I agree with you in that sense that I think Berkman is saying, I think what, what Berkman isn't saying is that you have 4,000 weeks and so you have to make the most out of every moment.

Matt Bain

Yeah. Yeah. He'd be the first one to say, no one knows if you've actually definitely got [17:18] 4,000 weeks, there is no guarantee. even like that is a false sense of security.

Daniel Sih

And even if you do have 4,000 weeks, well, it's a ridiculously tiny amount of time for the infinite possibilities that you could use it for.  Your Greek isle is just one example.  So instead what he says is actually  the secret, this is my reading of Berkman, the secret to actually  living without time anxiety [17:40] and living in a meaningful way is to actually give up on the idea that you have to use your life in a meaningful way.  Essentially to accept the reality that you can't fit it all in and that it is impossible to do all the protocols that you're asked to do and to buy all the things you need to buy and to have all the experiences you need to experience to have the perfect life, the perfect body, the perfect relationships.  To essentially give up on that idea because it is actually impossible [18:09] with a finite life to do infinite things.  And once you can give up on the impossibility of that idea, well, then you can start to make smart, sensible choices about the few things that you can do or want to do with your finite time and enjoy them even knowing that then you won't complete everything.  That's my read of Birkman, but is that your read as well?

Matt Bain

Yeah, the only thing that I'd add to it  is that uh this idea [18:38] that again, time is something external to me.  That's like package that I am solely responsible for using the best way that I see fit. To that he also adds the point that time is actually something that is often in human experience, most fulfillingly experienced alongside other people.  So he talks about like digital nomads, you know, who work remotely, live remotely and feel that they had, they're trying to crank up as much autonomy as they have over their time.

[19:08] He says, no, no, no, you have to, give up to your point, the idea that you're actually in control of this thing and that you're going to have enough of it to do everything you want to.  And second, you also want to give up the idea that it's kind of solely yours.  Instead, the way the humans experience time again, most fulfillingly and most pleasurably is usually alongside other people.  There's a note.

Daniel Sih

When you enter into the rhythm of life of communities and the seasons of life that exist in real time.  So you get, you enter into life as it is, I suppose relinquish control of it [19:37] and then decide how you can live the best you can within those constructs.  So Matt, why don't we shoot to a quote from Berkman himself.  Ah He says this, “Once you stop believing that it might be possible to avoid hard choices about time, it gets easier to make better ones. You begin to grasp that when there's too much to do and there always will be, that the only route to psychological freedom is to let go of the limit [20:05] defying fantasy of getting it all done and instead focus on a few things that count.”  I really like that.  You know, I like this idea that psychological freedom, you know, I suppose just the lack of time anxiety, that constant sense of having to keep up can only really be found that there's a freedom that comes when you give up the fantasy of trying to do it all and be it all and thinking you can somehow optimize yourself [20:35] to getting everything completed, right?  It's only when you actually give up that idea and accept the reality that you are finite and that there are infinite possibilities and you can't possibly get it all done, that you won't live the life that you want to live, you won't leave the legacy you're hoping for, then you can actually start to make smart choices about what you actually want to leave behind.

Matt Bain

Yeah, I don't like it.

Daniel Sih

[20:57] It sucks.  There'll be plenty of people who push back, right?  We had audience members who pushed back hard against our four burner theory, the idea that there are limits in life and that you can't have it all, right?  So this is, this is even harder.  Isn't that true?

Matt Bain

It is true.  So to be clear, I don't like it as in it's a, it's it's a bitter pill to swallow. (A) because having to make a bunch of hard, difficult choices sucks.  Puts a lot of responsibility [21:23] on someone if, cause  no one's going to make them for me, or at least I shouldn't really be in a position where I allow or expect other people to make them for me.  So those hard choices fall on me.  It's going to mean disappointing people.  It's going to mean disappointing yourself and having to face up to your own mortality is difficult.  Sounds great on paper.  It makes for a great book, it writes well, but in reality, all that stuff is difficult and often painful.  So I see, I see as being a necessary kind of pain.

Daniel Sih

[21:50] Because it aligns with reality, right?

Matt Bain

It does. Because if you try to do it all and try and think that you can get it all done and have that life through efficiency and hacks and protocols, like it's just not real, right?  So it's better to live in reality than unreality.  But I agree, it’s hard.

Matt Bain

Yeah. But I mean, most of us can sustain unreality even like for a little while.  And that's not a bad place to live while it's there, right.  No, I hear you, I hear you and I, it is true.

Daniel Sih

[22:20] Yeah.  So you talked about mortality. ah think that's, mean, if you look at Berkman's work, both 4,000 Weeks and Meditation for Mortals, it feels like one of his deeper, more salient points is that behind this  frenetic churn and this constant rush to do more and be more and keep up with everything is an inability to face our [22:48] impending death, essentially that that was my read as well. Do you read the same thing?

Matt Bain

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, definitely.  And, uh, and the unknowability about, well, for most of us at least the time, the timing as well, like that's a doozy not knowing when and how.

Daniel Sih

Which goes back to our original good life quote, right?  That actually time is very much like money.  Although the difference is we don't earn money.  Like we say we earn money, we spend money, we circulate money, but we don't [23:16] own time or manage time because we are time.

Matt Bain

Yeah, I don't know how much is in the account. 

Daniel Sih

The, uh, what 40 minutes that our listeners spend on this podcast is 40 minutes of their life they will never get back.  I'm very sorry in advance, but, the time you, how you use your time is your life.  And, and I think therefore, how can you make choices within that construct both to let it go and accept your finality, but also [23:43] to take responsibility for the time and how you use it.  There's that paradox again, right?  You need to do both.

Matt Bain

Yeah, that's right.  And to put  the kind of positive and genuine sincere spin on this as well, I think Bergman would does  argue that without responsibility, that awesome in the old school sense of the word responsibility of having to choose  what you're going to apply your limited finitude to, it doesn't noble the choices that you do end up making.

[24:12] It gives them a certain amount of gravity and importance because it's always done with the proviso of this is choosing this costs me this that to say yes to this means saying no to a whole bunch of other things over there.  So immediately it gives a particular weight to what you say yes to.  And that's also done with the mindset of, know, I'm expecting them, I'm going to have like maybe 10 or 20 years, good years with this person.  But even then has to be, that has to be uttered with the humility of I can't be certain.

Daniel Sih

[24:41] Yeah, I read Berkman's work and maybe this will be my last point, but I read his work as actually really hopeful and encouraging, which is ironic because he's talking about death and finality and how much time you don't have.  And he's talking about how you can't get everything done, but the hope and the, the positivity in it is actually once you, again, once you accept that it's impossible, then  you kind of [25:07] get a get out of jail free card.  I don't have to leave a dent in the universe and I don't have to leave a legacy for 20 generations and I don't have to get my inbox to zero.  I don't have the time block perfectly.  I don't have to have a perfect house and Instagram body and I don't have to, you know, eat my vegetables with kind of microbiome, blah, blah.  Does that make sense?  Like you don't have to do it all because it's impossible anyway.  So therefore, [25:37] what does enoughness look like for you?  How much money is enough?  What type of connection with your kids? What type of relational time  or  how much work do you want to do?  Like I suppose you get the choices to take responsibility for what you say yes to and the freedom to psychologically let go of the rest.  And that seems really positive to me.  Ah again, from Berkman himself.

[26:04] “The more you try to manage your time with the goal of achieving a feeling of total control, (and think total control is the key,) and freedom from the inevitable constraints of being human, the more stressful, empty and frustrating life gets.  But the more you confront the facts of finitude instead and work with them rather than against them, the more productive, meaningful and joyful life becomes.”

Matt Bain

Yeah, yeah, he turns, turns finitude into funnitude.

Daniel Sih

Oh no, I'm not sure that'll catch on.

[26:34] So with that in mind, why don't we have a pause for silence?  Sound okay?  

Matt Bain

Sounds necessary.

Daniel Sih

And you actually came up with a great question as we were prepping for today.  And the question is, what is the most, what is the next most necessary thing?  It's a good question to ponder on, you know, what actually matters to you?  What's the yes that you want to say yes to?  Or maybe what, what are the, [27:01] broad and wide dreams and hopes and aspirations that are unrealistic that you can let go of.

Matt Bain

Yeah.  But, to give credit where it's to you, I wish I could take full responsibility for coming up with that, but that's a Carl Jung quote.  

Daniel Sih

There you are.  I it sounded smart.  I definitely thought it sounded smarter than you, Matt.  All right.  Let's pause for a moment.  Make some space.

Matt Bain

[27:50] Hopefully that was useful.  Speaking of useful, Dan, it'd be good to spend some time asking, answering the question, like, what does this actually all mean in practice?  Like, how does this play out in reality?

Daniel Sih

I've done a lot of big thinking about life and death and time.  But yeah, we want this to actually have a practical application in your life.  And I think this is where it's hard because in our previous pod courses, we've given frameworks or practices which are about adding more or doing, know, building habits like time blocking [28:19] or practicing high quality leisure activity or even going for a walk in nature.  But a lot of the practices that we want to talk about in this season are kind of internal shifts, not just physical external doings, if that makes sense.  It's more about shifting our mindset and our perspective so that what we have already is enough or so that we can let go of those kind of false wants and needs [28:48] that are actually stopping us from enjoying life, but they're still practices related to them.  So we've come up with a framework.  Last time we had an Acrostic, which was the Shift framework, we have the Aware framework.  So tell us about the Aware framework, why we came up with it, and give us a quick summary that will help us guide through this podcast season. 

Matt Bain

To your point though, I certainly wouldn't want to undersell that this is going to be difficult.

[29:18] Although, yeah, cause I mean, again, it's easy to talk about internal shifts and changes of perspective and attitude, but like we've already mentioned, a lot of this stuff is looking at opportunity costs and making hard trade-offs. 

Daniel Sih

Well, and it's also looking at your own stories and your own internal beliefs and patterns, right?  So, and we do need to kind of tackle into some of those hard internal spaces.  So on the one hand, they're simple. Like everything we share will be simple to do.

Matt Bain

[29:43] But not easy.

Daniel Sih

But not easy.

Matt Bain

No, not easy.  Perhaps the most difficult for me at least.  Okay, so here we are starting off with A for appreciation.  So we're to be encouraging practicing gratitude and thankfulness.  So, you know, to Burtman's point, what is really good about the present, the here and now, as opposed to what are we anticipating or what are we kind of ruminating on or thinking about from the past?  

Daniel Sih

Yeah.  And what I love about gratitude and appreciation is that you're not building anything new into your life. You're just [30:11] paying attention to what you already have and learning to actually be thankful for it. So it's a mindset shift, but it's incredibly valuable.  So that's a practice we want to talk about.

Matt Bain

Yeah.  So that's the first one.  Then we got W for watch for Kairos.  So I think we talked about this was the last season or the season before Kairos.

Daniel Sih

We haven't had a deep dive. I've done a lot more on my YouTube channels, but um yeah, Kairos is a Greek word for moment in time, essentially as opposed to Kronos, which is like TikTok time, the Greek word Kairos [30:40] time means a significant or meaningful moment in time.  We'll talk about this in detail, but it's about finding those specific memorable moments that define life um that are often serendipitous and unexpected and out of our control.

Matt Bain

That's good. Yeah.

Daniel Sih

And that's where it fits with the idea of enoughness.

Matt Bain

Yeah.  Yeah.  Nice.

Daniel Sih

So how do you look for those Kairos moments and how do you allow your life to be guided by those unexpected moments?  

Matt Bain

How do you recognize them?

Daniel Sih

How do you recognize them? And then act [31:10] on them, actually allow them to shift your perspectives. again, this is more about perceiving the world as it is and not being so fast and distracted that you miss the Kairos moments of your life.  It's about having that kind of ear attuned to what happens and the meaning of that.  We'll talk about that.  That'll be good episodes.  

Matt Bain

That's good.  Okay.  And then back to another A, acceptance.  Acceptance.  So this is about trying to embrace what is as opposed to change the stuff that [31:39] cannot be changed.  And often for a lot of us, this is going to evolve the futile attempts to try to change other people.  Influence is one thing, change in them, another ball game.  So really critical to highlight, this isn't about being resigned.  This isn't about being like passive.  It's more about acknowledging that some stuff is hard and fast.  And again, being a human and being surrounded by other humans involves your own and other people's limitations as well [32:06] and kind of moving your internal world to be able to both recognize and accept that when it crosses your path.

Daniel Sih

Yeah, acceptance is different than resignation.

Matt Bain

Exactly.

Daniel Sih

Acceptance, there's a maturity and a cost and a sacrifice to yourself where you accept reality and don't try to change things as opposed to resignation where you just say, look, it's all too hard.  It's all too hard.  Let's just pretend it's not a problem.  And then there's bitterness and kind of passive aggression that goes behind that.

Matt Bain

Yeah. So we're not, yeah, certainly not encouraging fatalism.

[32:35] And then R for relinquish a great word. obviously relinquish letting stuff go.  So this is about releasing control when you don't have it or perhaps shouldn't even try to have it.  It means releasing what we're going to explore as and term as unhelpful attachments.  So stuff that, know, you still too kind of, uh, fused and intertwined with in life that perhaps isn't good for you.  

Daniel Sih

And we'll dive into David [32:55] Sorry, not David Brooks, Arthur Brooks work from strength to strength.  He's got some great practices around how to manage attachments and let go of unhelpful, well, yeah, all attachments, whatever language we use.  

Matt Bain

That's right. We'll be taking down some golden cows, hopefully.

Daniel Sih

That sounds good. And the final one of the Aware framework.

Matt Bain

Yeah.  Well, this is timely enoughness, enoughness.

Daniel Sih

We made that word up.  

Matt Bain

It's a great, it's a great word.  Yeah.  So choosing less adding in, so not resigning, [33:23] not being passive or fatalistic, actively choosing less.  So that's all about the intention and downshifting pace, expectations and our consumption. 

Daniel Sih

Sounds good.  So I'm looking forward to it.  We're going to go through the aware framework over the next nine episodes or eight episodes.  We'll explain them in detail.  It'll be a bit different than season three, where we actually shaped our seasons around our framework.  It's more that we're going to kind of move in and out rather than sequentially through these as we [33:49] explore different topics and, and build a scaffold to help us understand why we struggle with time, how we struggle with our finality and what it looks like to actually reshift our mindset so that we can appreciate, watch for the Kairos, accept, relinquish and know what is enough. 

Matt Bain

I like that.  I think that's what's something that's kind of complicated and nuanced deserves.  It's too, it's too complex for a simple roadmap.

Daniel Sih

[34:14] Yeah, there's no dummy guide to finality is there?  Yeah.  But hopefully some tools that will help you along the way.  If you want a sequential, more kind of clear explanation of the Aware Framework, go to spacemakers.au forward slash S four.  Every season of our pod course, we have all of our activities lined up in a sequential order.  We'll have a summary of the Aware Framework and any other tools and practices that come out of this.  Maybe even some references from this season.

[34:42] We'll put it all into one document so that you can download it.  People find that really helpful. And let us know what you need or what you find helpful as a result.  We're at podcast at spacemakers.au.

Matt Bain

[34:55]

So it's time to get super practical and give people at home  an exercise.

Daniel Sih

Their weekly activity.

Matt Bain

Yeah, their weekly activity. Uh But this is  going to be the first in a long line of anti-productivity, productivity suggestions or activities.  And again, we want to base each of these on our Acrostic, our framework.  And so this one is all about acceptance with a, you know, two shots acceptance followed by a chaser of relinquishment.

Daniel Sih

No, you're making it complex. Yeah, I agree. 

Matt Sih

So I've seen you do this. I've seen the TED Talks.

[35:25] Uh, is, think it's a great, really potent illustration that you both demonstrated and that people can try at home.  think it's well worth trying at home. So can you step us through your overflowing glass activity?

Daniel Sih

Yeah. So look, what I did at my Ted talk is what I want our audience to do at home.  Okay.  So I put out a glass of water, just an ordinary glass and I filled it up with a jug of water.  So I filled it until it was completely full and then I kept pouring and I kept pouring and I kept pouring [35:54] until water kind of flowed all over the table or all over the TEDx kind of floor.  I've done this a few times, but for me, the glass represents our finite capacity, our limited time, energy and attention.  So our 4,000 weeks or our 2,000 weeks or our one week, we may have one week left, you never know, right?  But it's our capacity and our limited time.  And the overflowing glass... [36:18] is all the stuff that you're asked to do or that you have to do.  You know, the emails that hit you, the meetings, the calendar requests, the tasks, the to-dos at work.  At home, maybe the school drop-offs and pickups and dance rehearsals and renovations and shopping and kind of getting your hair cut.  I don't know, all the things that you have from paying the bills to going to the Greek islands one day, all right?  And it's impossible.  And... [36:45] I think part of what I talk about in the TED Talk and part of what we've been talking about is actually once you accept the reality that you'll never get it all done and that you have more water flowing into your glass than you can control, once you accept the reality that this is the new normal for all of us, well then you can start to make good choices about what goes in your glass first and what needs to flow out.  I suppose for me and for people like me who like a sense of control, it's about [37:15] learning to accept that you live in an overflowing glass world and learning to relinquish that false sense of control that you can get it done by being efficient, by working harder and actually being smarter.  So the activity is to get a glass of water, to overfill it and pour more and more more water out until maybe you feel like, you know, don't actually flood the house, but pour enough so that you start to feel uncomfortable with the mess.

[37:45] And the overflow and just meditate on that.  Learn to feel your feelings and think about life as an overflowing glass.  How comfortable do you feel with this idea that you're finite and yet life is infinite?  How comfortable do you feel in accepting that there is a large overflow and that's okay.  Cause you're enough and it's enough even without getting it all done.  That's the activity.

[38:15] Makes sense?

Matt Bain

Yeah, it's really visceral. like it.

Daniel Sih

Now, if we'll give you a cheats version or a, uh, an easier version, suppose if, if I look, everyone can get a glass of water and everyone can do this, but if you're, let's say in the car right now, and maybe not the car cause don't do this while you're driving, was going to close your eyes.  But, uh, if you're in a place and you want to this right now, well, then you can just close your eyes [38:39] and visualize that activity, visualize yourself pouring a glass of water and it flowing everywhere and going everywhere.  And it still gives you the ability to at least visualize the feelings that you might have.  It's not as good as the exercise itself, but if that's better than nothing, ah it's not a bad way to pause for a moment and just visualize that.  And just ask the question, how much is enough?  What am I happy to let be messy?  What am I trying to control?

[39:05] And what really matters, what should go in the glass first.  They're the kind of questions I'd encourage you to ask. And that's your activity. 

Matt Bain

Small questions. 

Daniel Sih

Small questions. we're only up to episode two of the season.  We thought we'd start off with a cheery episode about dying.  All right.  And in terms of the final thing, pick an action trigger.  So, you know, it's easy to have good ideas, but it's hard to do things, even if it's just pouring a glass of water.  I'd like you to pause before you close this podcast and literally think, [39:34] where will I pour the glass?  You what room of the house?  When will I do it?  Will it be after dinner?  Will it be after breakfast?  Will it be on the weekend?  Set an action trigger.  When and where will you do this?  And I think you'll be much more likely to make it happen.

Matt Bain

Well, Dan, I am looking forward to next week.  Next week's episode is going to be an absolute doozy.  We're going to be taking on the potential golden calf of health and lifestyle.  And I think we've pretty snappily entitled the episode, the vegan crossfit paradox.

Daniel Sih

[40:04] Vegan CrossFit Paradox.  And so if you want to hear more about that, you'll have to join next episode. 

Matt Bain

Yeah, yeah, yeah, please, please, please tune in.  And also, again, if you found this  helpful, if already like two episodes in, found it intriguing  and provocative, please share it with your friends.  If you've got people in your life, family or friends who you think would also benefit from it.  And it would mean a lot to us, again, if you feel particularly encouraged or inspired by it, please leave a written review, [40:30] on say Apple podcasts, Spotify, all the regular platforms.  That means a lot to us and it goes to  goes a long way in terms of getting eyes on to our show as well.  But until then, do we still say make space?

Daniel Sih

Maintain space?! Make or maintain space.  See ya.

Matt Bain

See ya. 

Narrator

The Spacemakers with Daniel Sih and Matt Bain. 

Daniel Sih

Big thanks to our longtime sponsor Bulk Nutrients, providing high quality supplements at affordable prices.

[40:57] If you're a new customer, you can enjoy 5 % off your first order at bulknutrients.com.au forward slash Spacemakers. 

Narrator

If you feel busy, overloaded and struggling to keep up, the Spacemakers Dojo is here to help.  This online community is for busy professionals like you, dedicated to making space together.  Dive into the dojo to regain control of your time and make space in a supportive, accountable community.

[41:23] Visit spacemakers.au forward slash dojo to find out more.