By Lekshmi Dinachandran
Summer 1988.
I was 4. One afternoon, as I lay on the warm cement floor in my grandparents' house and drank in the summer sun, mother made her first ikebana — a sparse, lopsided arrangement that didn’t seem to make sense.
I wondered why it was considered beautiful. Over time, I learned to appreciate how ikebana is about embracing limits, valuing space as much as substance.
Oliver Burkeman’s Meditations for Mortals channels that same philosophy, encouraging us to live meaningfully by accepting life’s imperfections instead of trying to conquer them.
The book, a follow-up to his bestselling Four Thousand Weeks, is structured as a four-week "retreat of the mind," offering a daily nugget of wisdom that is easy to digest but profound in impact.
Burkeman questions the relentless pursuit of productivity, suggesting we let go of the idea life will "begin" once everything is perfect.
Instead, he encourages us to work within the constraints we have and to find meaning in the reality in front of us.
One of Burkeman’s ideas, "mind your own business," suggests focusing on our priorities rather than taking on every issue we see.
While I see the value in not spreading ourselves too thin, I feel he overlooks the need to raise our voices for others and engage collectively with the world’s problems.
Still, Meditations for Mortals offers a refreshing perspective that stands out in a crowded self-help field.
It’s a comforting and liberating reminder that we don’t have to treat life as a project to perfect.
Lekshmi Dinachandran is a chemistry researcher at the University of Otago and moonlights as a translator and book critic
