Self-Compassion, Mortality and Time Management

“Lately, I feel an urgency to help adults who work with young children become more compassionate with themselves, in order to help them better accept children’s development and humanity. I guess I am feeling wistful since I turned 70. And, as I am clearly entering the autumn of my life, I have become more than usually reflective, especially about self-compassion and validation of children’s feelings,” writes Tamar Jacobson, in the article at the core of the Exchange Reflections on “Self Compassion.”

Jacobson’s remarks reveal how facing our own mortality shines a light on our values and priorities. In Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, Oliver Burkeman brings that perspective right into our attempts to manage the daily grind:

“Productivity is a trap. Becoming more efficient just makes you more rushed, and trying to clear the decks simply makes them fill up again faster. Nobody in the history of humanity has ever achieved ‘work-life balance,’ whatever that might be… The day will never arrive when you finally have everything under control — when the flood of emails has been contained; when your to-do lists have stopped getting longer; when you’re meeting all your obligations at work and in your home life; when nobody’s angry with you for missing a deadline or dropping the ball; and when the fully optimized person you’ve become can turn, at long last, to the things life is really supposed to be about.” He continues, “The more you try to manage your time with the goal of achieving a feeling of total control, 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.”

Combining Burkeman’s reality-check on time with Jacobson’s insights on self-compassion brings a certain freedom. Jacobson remarks, “When I become more aware of how I tick emotionally, I am able to be more intentional, and have more options in choosing how to behave–not only with children, but, in fact, with everyone in my life...”

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