Book Review: "Meditations for Mortals" by Oliver Burkeman

It's late May 2025 and I've been looking at the self-help industry lately because honestly, I like to pick apart what they are about and look at whether they are workable solutions. I have covered many books that have not been workable, books like those by Cal Newport which definitely come from a place of middle class privilege in which the proposed solutions would not work for your average working class labourer. Well, as this book had a review by Cal Newport on the front which was very positive, I thought I would give this one a try. I went to the Waterstones recently as well and saw that Meditations for Mortals was literally everywhere. So, let's see why this book is so popular.

The author posits a question about human limitations and asks the reader to accept them because they aren't going to change. He states that trying to control them is futile because of the way in which we are designed to want to rest time to time. Apparently, we should just accept what comes and live day by day, taking everything as it comes rather than getting stressed about things. Opening up the text is this philosophy therefore: 'don't be stressed, it will work out.' This is about as helpful as a radiator is to a sub-saharan African person. But, the author's question is about purpose, stating that if we were to let go of our stresses at work we could save our energy for something that matters.

The author also challenges the modern obsession with control and productivity by stating that our obsession with having control over every single minute of our lives is doing us no good. I'm not going to lie but this isn't really explained too well nor are we given a whole bunch of specifics. However, again I feel like this is a very middle class issue. The working class often cannot afford to have that extra time in the day to do 'what they feel like' and on top of this, most of their time is someone else's. I just find this 'control' narrative sounds nice on paper, but in the real world it might be harder to implement than a 28-day cycle of three-page on average chapters.

He seeks to define productivity not by the way in which we work for someone else in a meaningless job, but as something meaningful we do for ourselves. This is actually something I can get on board with, perhaps we need to flip the narrative and decentralise work. Work is one thing but life is a whole different thing. But then again, the ability to leave work at work is something that is only available to the very few, and then those who can go home at a reasonable hour to spend time on things they love are even fewer than that. I think it is something we would all like to get on board with but it is almost impossible unless you have the time to be doing a little bit of it every day or every other day - that's when it becomes part of your routine. If you can't do that, it won't necessarily stick and that will render it useless.

Striving for perfection damages human beings and having the inability to make mistakes is something that I completely agree with. Making a society in which we are unable to make mistakes at all is something really bizzare to me. Humans are basically designed to learn from making mistakes and yet, in our work lives, we are forced into the requirements of perfectionism. It makes no sense whatsoever because of the nature of humans. We are meant to make mistakes, learn from them, modify ourselves and fix the mistake. But now we aren't being allowed to make mistakes and so, we aren't mending ourselves either. It is something I have found I agree with quite a lot. As a society we need to let go of perfectionism.

There's also letting go of the 'to-read' pile, which is something I massively agree with. Your reading list should not be based on what you think you should be reading because it's new, or you saw it on Instagram or because people are making you feel less intelligent for not reading it. Your reading list should only be dictated by one thing: what you want. For example: I'm reading a self-help book here, but I've recently read a philosophy text but some time soon I'm planning to read a bit of girly feminist fiction. I'm not less or more intelligent for wanting to read certain things and neither are you. Let the moment take you at the time. Think about what you would like to read rather than what you think you should be reading.

In 28 chapters, Burkeman gives us many workable solutions to the meaningless stresses of modern life and even though this is definitely a book that doesn't understand the issues of the working class, it does still make a few good points that could help everyone. Ideas such as 'scruffy hospitality' are quite good and it deals with how we should prioritise socialising over having a perfect sense of hospitality and accepting ourselves for not being perfect at everything seem to be doing well, even though I can still poke holes in them. I would have liked this book to be more realistic but hey, we get what we get.