Oliver Burkeman: Give up Control, Save Yourself

22:46Oliver Burkeman:I think that's what we're learning. Yeah, but do you get what I'm saying? So I think those types of things in life, I know I'm being extreme When I say I blame it on that But it's one of those things Where you then think Ah I made the wrong choice But if the lottery Never told you about the numbers Because the numbers now tells you That there was a correct answer The truth is There is no correct answer To the lottery It is just the number That ends up being the one So there's no correct one So if they just said Somebody won And it wasn't you obviously Then we just keep on moving And they go We're not going to tell anybody The numbers But we're just going to But it's a human thing you need proof that you were wrong people never need proof that they were right okay then they can just do this did you take 13 then you go no yeah so leave us alone

23:36they can just be like give us your number give us let's role play Oliver you be the prospective person like Eugene who wants to know why I haven't given you proof and then you're calling in you're the lotto office yeah I'm the lotto office yeah

23:52Oliver Burkeman:so what I'm going to ask will you tell me the numbers yeah so basically you just want proof because I don't tell the numbers ring ring hello I need you to prove that I didn't win the lottery oh hello who am I speaking to my name's Oliver oh hello Oliver yeah you didn't win alright yeah I like Oliver you see you go straight to it what do I need to know if Oliver didn't believe me say you don't believe me I don't know how to trust you you might be okay that's a very good question Oliver we have many people let me put you through to the non-trusting department. Bim, bim, bim, bim, bim, bim, bim, bim, bim, bim, bim, bim, bim.

24:26Ah, welcome, Oliver, to the non-trusting department. Oliver, tell me one of the numbers you picked.

24:31Oliver Burkeman:12. Ah, sorry, we don't have 12. Thanks for calling. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

24:42Can I tell you, this is what I believe, genuinely. I know this is a brash, crazy statement to make. I think it is because of all the signals that we've received in life, whether it's from other people, whether it's from institutions, that there was a correct, that we constantly feel like we are incorrect. So everyone who posts on their timeline that they found the love of their life makes you feel like you're incorrect. I hate those people. join the team because when they're on the other side and asking for privacy and respect while they handle their affairs as they're splitting up their their divorce then it's like whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa now you want privacy

25:23Oliver Burkeman:yeah whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa you were all over my timeline writing poems about how when you find the one for you you realize that there's a half of you that never existed and in that your and then now you want privacy but you were very quick to basically tell me that there was a correct answer your person yeah now in the divorce why are you not saying that that's the correct answer so i don't have a problem with people falling in love or saying they found the right person but what i'm saying is when the world constantly feels like people are finding the answer and you are not i think it can make you feel more depressed and more like a loser like you're saying oh yeah and it's also because like you have access to your own internal monologue of self-doubt and self-criticism you don't have access to anybody else no right so it looks from the outside you only hear the highlights or the or the lowlights you just made me think of a genius idea we start a new social media app shoot right right is it gonna be on the phone yeah smartphone yeah it'll be it'll be full-on okay but it's gonna be gonna have it yeah i'll have it i'll do what i do now i'll delete it just checking i'll come on every few weeks and i'll put okay check this out Okay, okay.

26:29Okay, it's going to be like Instagram, right? But what we're going to do is whenever someone posts, they must post the picture, but then they have to post all their doubts and fears that were happening in and around that picture in that moment. But you can't see it instantly. So you got to go like, wow, what a beautiful picture in the Maldives. And then they got to post and be like, man, my financial woes have really been crippling me. And I'll be honest, I don't know if I could afford this trip. But who can see that? You. Only. No, whoever. Whoever's seeing the picture Okay okay Not the person that they are with On the picture obviously So it kind of blocks you Like Tinder does I like that You and your wife are on Tinder At the same time In the same house But you guys will never match each other I actually like this idea How does Tinder do that?

27:11It's a good question actually I think it's a proximity It probably is like an IP based type thing Yeah because couples have been on Tinder In the same house But they've never matched

27:19Oliver Burkeman:That's weird What's weird is that They're both on Tinder Well that's weird yeah That's the weirdest part Yeah but you get what I'm saying? Just because what you said is so valuable, we always know the realities and the cracks behind the facade. We don't portray that. So when people, have you ever complimented somebody on their outfit and been shocked at how doubtful they are about it? You'll be like, damn, you really, this is a great outfit. And they'll be like, oh, thank you. You know, I wasn't sure about these shoes. And then you're like, oh, I had this assumption of you as a human being that you had everything put together and everything was perfect.

27:56you're now revealing to me that behind this facade was a whole lot of not sureness and nothing that doesn't take away from how you look but had i not said anything to you and had you not been honest back with me i would have thought that dressing well comes with like 100 clarity and confidence

28:12Oliver Burkeman:that you've made the right choice right right and the crazy part i actually get at this in the other book is that kind of revealing that kind of insecurity and vulnerability is humanizing right You feel closer to that person. We're going through our lives trying to put out these facades and say, like, we just know exactly what we're doing. The moment somebody says, I don't necessarily know what I'm doing, you feel so much connection to them. Like, you feel like fellow feeling because you know that inside you don't really know. I don't really know what I'm doing either. I think we all don't know what we're doing.

28:43You know what I've realized? We trust people more as well. Think about how many times you and I have sat with an expert here. the craziest thing, the higher the level of expertise, the more doubt we've seen in people. We've met everyone, biochemists, astrophysicists, you name it. They have doubt. You'll go, what about this? They're like, oh, well, we don't know. And actually, sometimes I wonder, I'll be honest with you, I'm not sure. And you're like, well, but you're the foremost expert. and you realize with expertise comes a humility and an acknowledgement that you don't really know anything because you start knowing how much you don't know.

29:23Absolutely, yeah. You get what I'm saying? But then as like average people, we know everything. But I think it comes with growing up. The older you get, the more you realize that moderation and awareness go hand in hand. So you know that your time is limited, things that you can do, and your emotional capacity for things is also very limited. But the awareness is always a helpful thing to help you realize that the path you didn't choose was maybe not good for you or good for you. For example, like relationships, New York will expose to you or is exposed to me really when in life you really need partnership.

30:00I've seen kids being taken to school. Then I'm like, they need this person to take them there. Then you've seen people between their 20s and their 40s in relationships. But within that spectrum as well, they're in different kind of relationships. So the younger ones are holding hands Being more affectionate Then the much older ones in their 40s and their 50s They're more comfortable with each other And then you see Maybe people in their 60s and 70s Who either don't have a partner Or have one And their interaction with that partner Is very different So if you're 20-something Trying to figure out What do you need in your life This is the best place to look at Because you'll see different people In different stages of their lives Interacting differently in relationships Yeah, yeah This is what I love about you so I haven't read this one about me?

30:43no meditations for mortals oh I thought you were complimenting me see how I doubted myself no but I love you as a person you know this thank you see how my self esteem wait did this come up before after oh I didn't see this why doesn't it recommend well you know recommendations they recommend random things to me like? bruh I have the most random recommendations tell us more Trevor bruh I will actually show you my recommendations you'll be like what is going on here no haven't you ever had this where like even your Netflix won't tell you to watch the new season of a show you're already watching.

31:11Right. Right. Then you're like, I don't watch Love Island. Yes, because it knows you're not expanding. You're focusing on one thing too much. It wants you to get out.

31:21Oliver Burkeman:It's got your best interest at heart. Yeah, moderation. It understands that you've watched enough serial killer shows. I don't watch those shows. I don't watch those shows, bro. You don't? I don't. You watch those shows. Oh, man, I love A Mind of a Serial Killer. Those people. Listen to this guy. You know to choose that today is the last day for this person and I'm gonna make a day out of it as well you're too excited by this you really is no but this is like I'm skimming through this this is what I love about your writing you see like to have a chapter like this this is a book that's gonna encourage you in life day one it's worse than you think just like just the idea of like yeah on the liberation of defeat right what does that even mean like or rather why would you choose that to be the starting off point to help somebody feel better about their lives i'll try to explain i did i did want to sort of bring people down to earth with a bump because then you can get started right if you're waiting the whole book to like bring them down to a bump it's i don't think it works you're my kind of guy i'm glad to hear it the way i was what is the idea i'm trying to get out of there is that a lot of the ways that we stress ourselves out in life come from not quite taking seriously enough the problems that we have so really simple example that I start with there is like, if you feel like you've got a really terrible to-do list, you've got so many things to do, it's going to take all your time and effort and discipline to get through it.

32:49Oliver Burkeman:It's really going to dominate your life to get through all these things. Then life becomes a real slog, right? Because you're trying to get to this point where you're through the list. But if you realize that it's worse than that, because there'll actually always be too much to do, because the space of things you feel like you need to do is always going to be bigger than your time and your abilities. So you're going to die with a long to-do list of things you haven't finished. Well, that's a lot more liberating because then it's like, oh, well, it can't be my job to get to the end of this to-do list.

33:18Oliver Burkeman:It must just be my job to do a bunch of the things on it that feel important, right? Because you're not, it's that feeling that you might be able to get to the point where you're on top of absolutely everything that is tormenting you, not the fact that you won't get there. Does that make sense? It makes complete sense. You basically, you've basically come in with, it's almost like people are running a race, like a hundred meter sprint, and they run in their like local municipality or town and they're coming fourth. And they're like, oh man, I just need to get to first. And you're stepping in going, you're the fourth slowest person or fourth fastest person in your town, but in the world, you are rubbish.

34:00You're absolutely trash. So stop stressing yourself about actually getting faster because even when you get to first in your town, you're still going to be the slowest person probably in this country. So just like... This is what I mean. This is liberation.

34:13Oliver Burkeman:Yeah. I don't love the implication in that analogy that there is someone who can do it perfectly, right? Because I want to say we're all in the same boat, ultimately, with being finite. But no, still, it holds, right? It's like once you realize that something that you're trying to do is not really, really difficult, but is impossible, you're freed up to do loads of really important, bold, cool things with your life. How do we find the balance between that and a complete apathy for life? Because some people sort of have this attitude, but they go like, well, it doesn't matter anyway. Nothing can be perfect.

34:49Nothing can be good. You can't be a good parent, so why try? You can't be a good partner, so why try? Work sucks always, so why? Like, how do you stop that from becoming a negative and go into the world of actually inspiring people?

35:00Oliver Burkeman:You know, there are different ways of addressing this, but I think what I always come down to is I just feel like if you're interested in this stuff in the first place, that's not going to be the risk that you run, right? Damn. Like, it's very unlikely that, like, you know, anyone who's got any level of success, anyone who's kind of stresses about it to some extent, anyone who's buying books about how to feel saner and calmer in the middle of the world we live in is, I mean, if they're already just completely a total slacker, they're not going to be in the market for it, right? So there's this idea in psychology of the insecure overachiever, which is whenever I mention this phrase, people are like, oh, yeah, that's me.

35:40Oliver Burkeman:That's me. That's me. Right. Like it's like people who do really well in life, but they kind of do it because they feel like they have to. Right. They've got to prove themselves. And I think most people in like public life, prominent people, famous people, whatever, like any of any of probably many of us in all sorts of walks of life have a big dose of this. Right. and so what those people need is a sort of a calming down and an ability to see that you can carry on being super ambitious without that sense of deficit and like void you don't need you can you can try to do loads of cool things in life as an expression of feeling good about yourself rather than because you feel bad about yourself and so i think that those are ultimately the kind of people that I'm writing for, people who don't feel any stress about how they use their time, don't seek out writing about it.

36:36Oliver Burkeman:I mean, Oliver's just like, this is not for you. Yo, do you think your life is fine? This is not for you. That's what Oliver said. Now, I do think that there are people who sort of feel so overwhelmed that they don't sort of give in to that kind of nihilistic idea, but they just sort of can't figure out where to start. and like there's just so much deluging me how can i find anything and those people i think i do try to address in this book right people who feel like despairing at how much they're burdened by stuff they have to do or feel they need to do that that i think is a different thing but people who are just like why do anything it's all pointless like you don't think that on some level you want to build a meaningful life right i think we're going to continue this conversation right after this short break.

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39:24Do you think some of the way you think was shaped by the fact that you're English? and what i mean by that is like i'm trying to think of how to phrase this i feel like if you were american your book would be a lot more rosy but being an optimistic brit means that you hope and believe in the possibility of a better future but you're also like it's going to be raining tomorrow do you get what i'm saying definitely is yeah it's it's a strange it's almost like you are the you are what i would assume if someone had like a like a stereotypical joke what is a a british motivational speaker an english motivational speaker i'd be like oh it's someone who tells you you can be better but you're probably

40:14Oliver Burkeman:not going to be you know what i'm saying i think it's yeah it's a great question because i actually lived for a huge chunk of time in in in new york as well so i've and i often feel like i've come to some kind of outlook that combines these two. Or it's maybe like being a Brit pushing against American culture. Although that might have been why I felt I wanted to come and live here, right? To kind of find that middle space. So, yeah, I feel like, you know, there's a sort of failure mode, as they say, of American self-help, which is this idea that you can do absolutely anything and everything. all you need to do is to keep pushing and one day you will be you know the president right whatever it's like it's it's a perfect success and wealth can be can be yours um with enough discipline and it's nothing to do with the society in which you live and it's nothing to do with the circumstances that you start off with or anything and the fact that time itself is limited right right exactly they're not god but there is a counterpart british like bad place to go which which is like you know, life sucks, why bother?

41:22Oliver Burkeman:Like all you can do is get through the day and that's as much to hope for. And I think what I'm constantly trying to do in my writing is like salvage some idea of ambition. Like I'm quite an ambitious person, I think, maybe for a British person, especially, who knows. But I don't want to have to do that in this kind of endlessly unsatisfied, always very anxiously facing the future kind of way. I'd like to find a way of taking the best of both of those things. And in a sense, you know, we do all die and we don't get to do all the things we want. Like that, some aspect of that British worldview is the truth, right?

41:59Oliver Burkeman:It is very much how it is. But I don't think the bit where you then sort of resign, I don't think it's about, I think I want to avoid a resignation. It's acceptance. This is a good way someone put it to me once. It's like acceptance, but it's not resignation. And there is a difference between those two. It's acceptance, but not resignation. so it's like living in reality but it's not drawing from that the lesson that like that's an interesting have amazing lives it's an interesting distinction to make because i'm trying to think of how you really really pass the difference acceptance versus resignation can i suggest something i mean i think it might be the difference between accepting that things are as they are yeah versus accepting that exactly how they are now is just basically how they're always gonna be how they've always been and how they always will be one is one is a more permanent right it's more permanent or is it more is one based on optimism i'm like i'm just trying to like grapple with this now and go like what what is acceptance yes means that there probably is another option but you're choosing you're not choosing it okay you're not available to you if you're resigning this it means it's out of your hands if you resign to something yeah it's out of your hands but if you're accepting it you could have gone right but now that i'm left oh okay at least with accepting you know that left exists when you're on the right okay but when you're resigning yourself to it okay you're like these are my circumstances i'm born on this island the weather's like this there's no way out of it so i've resigned myself to the fact that i am this person from this place right so i guess one one has more agency than in some or it's like the acknowledgement of your agency in it in a way then i used to see this when I used to work at the mall as a teenager.

43:38Oh man, this guy loves bragging about working at the mall. It was my greatest achievement. He loves it. For those of us who didn't work at malls, when malls were the empire of the world where traders would come and peddle their wares and exchange coins. I always say that because I'm jealous. And gold bullion and spices. Sometimes leave their children there acting like it was a mistake. Your malls were fire, bro. At the mall, we used to have this tradition. So there was two times of the year where promises would be made. Then you would see that people have accepted or resigned themselves to the fate of working at the store.

44:12Around Easter, people would say, next Easter, I won't be here, man. I'm going to be somewhere else. Christmas time. Because we hated those two seasons. People would be like, next Christmas, I won't be here. Three years at the mall, at the same store, went by with people saying the same thing. Until I resigned. And two years later, I came back to the mall and the same people were still there. Oh, okay. So those people had resigned themselves to the fact that this is their reality. The mall was their universe. If they were ever going to leave the store, it was to go to another store, not the mall.

44:44But whenever I left the mall, I was like, this place here is a choice. I'm choosing to be here. So I left. And I never looked back. When you went back, what was the vibe when you saw the people? They were still the same. What were they like with you? They were like, it's only a matter of time before you go to another mall. Wow, really? Yeah, I was like... The mall cursed you. In their world It was well wishing Oh damn They were like You'll find stability again In the community again Oh I thought you were saying They were like You might be out for now Eugene But it's only a matter of time Before you find yourself In another mall Being in a mall Is almost like being on Those Star Trek spaceships Yeah Where they're traveling Across the galaxy And there's different types Of aliens that Kind of live together The mall is like that There's different types Of levels People who work At the body shop Smell nice all the time And they think they're better People who work at the luggage shop know about the world, but they've never been to the world.

45:38People who work at the music store know a lot about artists and art, but they've never produced a single thing in their life. People who work at the grocery store know about... So it's almost like this multiverse that exists in one building. And as a shopper, you go in there to get your goods, but as the people that work there, they live in this universe. And after a while, you become scared to leave the universe.

45:59Oliver Burkeman:Well, the thing that that makes me think of is that this idea, it's another way of talking about this stuff, I think, That like we are actually always choosing. It's just that we're either choosing consciously or unconsciously. This is a big point like the existentialist philosophers were really big on, right? This idea that like to stay somewhere because you think you just have to stay there is a choice. And once you're making it more consciously, like maybe it is the best thing for you to do, right? That's not ruled out. It could be that there's something empowering about knowing that it is a choice.

46:31Oliver Burkeman:There is a sense in which you always have a choice. not meaning in that sort of worst version of the American ethos way that like it doesn't matter that you were born into poverty or it doesn't matter that you've got this or that disadvantage, but that within those frames, you're making choices every moment. The analogy I like to use for that is I always go, think of it like a board game. We all started a different place on the board game, but from that point onwards, you're choosing. and you really are rolling a dice because but you're choosing to roll the dice some people say I'm not going to roll the dice because look where I started yeah yeah you started in a terrible place but you can choose to roll the dice and then the dice is going to determine some parts of your life and it's going to not determine but then when you land on certain squares you can choose to do things or not do things do you know what I mean and it's this weird it's this weird balance of knowing that in every situation Viktor Frankl had the most famous one I was going to say yeah Viktor Frankl for me what is it was in the Holocaust and he was like in a concentration camp and And he was just like, he just chose, he was like, no, I'm happy.

47:34He said, I'm not happy about this situation. I'm not choosing this to be in the situation. But the one thing I won't let them do is take away my ability to be like enjoying like my life as a person and the ideas that I have of myself. And that idea, I mean, you can imagine how many people butt up against it. They're like, no, but you can't. You're in a terrible, terrible situation. He's like, yes, the situation I'm in is terrible. but I myself will choose to perceive my life a certain way without being delusional

48:00Oliver Burkeman:and I will choose to maintain my mental state in a certain way and I mean obviously he was you know that's why he birthed a certain way of thinking to do it under such extreme circumstances is quite special but it does remind you that you can always choose you know what but would you say he accepted or he resigned himself to the situation no he accepted that's what I mean to your point because he had his agency in it. This is how I think of it. I was saying this to my brother the one day we're like waiting in a line somewhere for something and he's like, ah man, I can't believe how long we have to wait.

48:35And then I said to him, not even like chastising, I was like, man, it's crazy to me that you consider this waiting because back in my day, I was like, we just had to wait. Do you remember going to the post office?

48:52Oliver Burkeman:Yes. Do you remember going to the post office? there's a whole generation who will never know what a post office is. What a post office is. Yes. The fact that you had to go and stand in a line, a single line that was manned or unmanned. There were like six windows and one person. And then they would beckon each person and everyone had a different degree of like difficulty that they were coming. Some person wanted a stamp. Some person wanted to know why the rooting for this package wasn't. Right. All you could do was wait in that line that you couldn't pull out your phone and watch a video you couldn't like read you couldn't answer emails you couldn't get on a call even right when i was first my first time in a post office in my years in the post office cell phones weren't even a thing you just you just literally just stood there and you just yeah you know what i mean you literally just stood there so so it's interesting to have that idea of like are you choosing right and i think on that specific issue that kind of the boredom and waiting and all that stuff it's so interesting because the the more we eliminate that from society, the worse it gets when you still have to do it.

49:58Oliver Burkeman:And that's something that I've written a little bit about. The more things get convenient, the more you can find anything out online in seconds that's happening 4 ,000 miles away, whatever, and then you're in a traffic jam. That's worse somehow than in the world where that was just what life was. Because now it feels like... One example I've given before is like, it's actually more frustrating to wait for food in the microwave than it is for food in the oven right because like those three minutes are just like because they're so close to being zero right it's like it's so near to i can just click my fingers and the food be warm do you wait for it to get to zero no everyone stops at like seven seconds yeah how many what's your time i mean i wait for the command you hit zero yeah yeah legend legend like you stand i'm asking the wait do you stand and wait.

50:45No, I don't stand and wait. So you leave. I pretend I've got other things to do. Okay, okay. No, no, no. Then you're normal. Then you're normal. Oh, okay, okay. I don't know a single person who puts the microwave on, watches the numbers, and then like watches it count down and actually stands there. And I'm saying like reasonable, like even one minute. Yeah. Right. You'll stop it at like one second. Yeah. That's enough. You know that scene in Avengers, Doctor Strange punches the Hulk? Yeah. And then the other body of the Hulk leaves and then... Yeah, when his spirit leaves. Yeah, that's how I am whenever I use the microwave.

51:17I'm like, can I leave the other part of me there?

51:22Oliver Burkeman:Yeah, no, it's true. And anyone who works in like a shared office, you come to the microwave to use it and it's always stopped at seven or eight seconds, right? And you've got to cancel it because I think people really find it very difficult to surrender for the surrender of control that is involved in waiting. Because on some really deep level, we want to be able to determine how our day unfolds. and we want it more now that we can do it in so many ways so that technology allows so much of this. And then we run up against these moments where you do just sort of have to wait. And it's really a feeling of, I mean, people talk about boredom like it's a really sort of passive or low-grade feeling, but it can be really quite aggravating, right, to be bored.

52:07Oliver Burkeman:And I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that you're being asked to surrender control for a little while to just wait for something to happen, wait for the microwave, wait for the traffic, the cars ahead to move. In New York, this is always striking to me, right? Everybody's honking their horns when they're caught in traffic jams, famously, for decades. It doesn't do anything, right? It's an expression of frustration. So clearly there's something else going on there than like, now I will do the most effective thing to move the car in front of me. It's just like, why do I have to run up against finite reality in this way?

52:41Oliver Burkeman:and like push against it and it won't just do what I want it to do. Is that British optimism? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You run uppercase fine at all. Yeah, you know what you've just made me realize as well is the more control we get, the less comfortable we have not having it. It's addictive. When you would order a pizza that was going to be delivered, when pizza delivery first sort of started, the pizza would just be, you'd have a conversation with a person they would tell you the pizza is on its way and then the pizza was on its way yeah then they started saying we deliver within yes they give you a time then you're like okay now you're looking at the time then they gave you a map to track it on a phone and now you sit there watching this person and then you're like what is what's happened what's happened what's what's going on here why are they you know what I mean like you've become even though they keep giving you more and more and more control pay more and you'll be first on the list.

53:42Ah, that's even, you know the worst one that's gotten me now is on the app. It'll say your food has been delivered. And then I'm like, but where is it? And then you find like the person like just got there. So they've registered that they've just arrived. But that delay in that moment in time, I'm more panicked

54:00Oliver Burkeman:than I was for the 30 minutes prior. I have a cheeky question I'd like to ask actually, which is another place where this happens famously is like when people get kind of like high profile. and celebrity-ish, right? What are you doing? I'll ask you both. But like, this is kind of like a famous phenomenon where you move ever more into a world where things are provided for you and you don't have to think about them because you have a team. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then like very famously, right? You have certain people just engaging in like meltdowns. Oh, they become assholes. Right. They become full on.

54:33Yeah, but I've seen people like that. I've seen, I think it's more prevalent with like musicians. Right. but I've seen like a few like A-list actors who are so sheltered from reality that they don't know that anything comes with any time or opportunity cost. They are not familiar with that concept at all. So food is just available all the time. And what they want. Yeah, and clothing is at their hotel. You know there's people who haven't been to a clothing store in decades. They don't even think of that as a concept. The clothing is just in their closets and then they wear it or they don't wear it and then there's more clothing and they wear it or they don't wear it.

55:12When they travel, the vehicles are just there that pick them up, that take them to a plane that just flies them somewhere. They don't think of the waiting in between. Someone takes their luggage. Someone sometimes flies ahead of them with their luggage to leave the luggage and put the clothes in their hotel room. And then when they get there, the clothes are just there. And so you remove so much of the time and opportunity cost that you are completely shattered by it when it comes into your world. You know what? I've just, Oliver, I'm sorry. I can't be part of this anymore.

55:49I feel like I know someone who's not using their high profile status enough. I feel like some of it is wasted on other people. Won't mention names I try to No one flies ahead of him No one packs his wardrobe I've always thought of doing that I won't lie It just But it seems ridiculous Let's try for a week There's a service you can pay That actually That you pay In New York They do that They will pack your Your luggage They pack your clothes They'll fly your luggage To the country You're going to on vacation And then They'll hang all your clothes Steam them Put everything up In the hotel So when you get there Everything's just ready and then when you check out, you just leave and then they'll come to the hotel, take the clothes, put them back in a bag and then ship them back to you.

56:34But I, my brain, I don't know why. I haven't, I haven't. Tell me more. I'm here for you. Because if those services are transferable to friends and family, I mean, Oliver and I won't say no. Yeah, but you're paying for all of these things. relax, go ahead. You're saying transferable like it's not a, here's what my issue is. I always believe That you should not Become Comfortable With things That may not be permanent Life is such No no Because what I mean is like If you are unable To accept it When it like Shifts the other way No I'll accept it You think you can go backwards Nah bro Let me tell you something You'll go crazy Do you know something about me That you think Oliver should know Let me tell you something My friend You'll go Crazy I don't care who you are in life There's going to be one thing you get to That you can't let go of Okay maybe right Warren Buffett was like famous for that He's like a simple dude Has like a McDonald's burger and a coke Like every day of his life And he lives in the same house And he drives the same Honda And all these things But try and take his private jet Oh boy oh boy That old man will Yo Warren Buffett Everyone's like he's such a simple guy And yes With a private jet But go look at what he has said about his private jet.

57:56He's like, I don't need to change anything in my life. And you know, private jet. Yo, he has said it himself. He's like, I can't go back. No way. Yeah, he's like, this is the only thing in my life that I can't. I can't. All this other stuff. The car, the house. I can live as simply as you want. I don't care about any of it. But the private jet, please. Please, please, please, please, please. Let's just keep that.

58:23Oliver Burkeman:And this is a phenomenon you see at every level of income, right? It's called hedonic adaptation, I think, right? And anyone who is at any level except really serious poverty, as soon as you have the ability to buy a certain brand of coffee or anything, it doesn't need to be private jets or within a million miles of private jets, it takes a few weeks and then that feels like it's gone from being a perk to being the minimum baseline. It's a new baseline. You feel like Oliver is subtweeting me, yes? It's a new baseline. Mr. Heirloom Tomatoes. Heirloom Tomatoes. Oliver, I've become a matcha connoisseur.

59:02Listen to this guy. Matcha. I have sped out matchas right outside the shop.

59:07Oliver Burkeman:Because they weren't perfect. Because they were not. Yeah, yeah. First time I had a matcha, I was like, this is nice. And then now? Six weeks in, I even know the best spots for matcha. You're right. At some point, what was normal is now not normal anymore. And this is a very New York thing as well, isn't it? That everyone always has like, there's the one place that they got to go and get their thing. And everything else is rubbish, even if actually it's some of the best in the world, right? Yeah, that feels like a particular New York thing. Don't press anything. We've got more What Now after this.

59:43Trick or treat! No one's home! I see you inside eating a Reese's. Why do people ignore trick-or-treaters? Do they not have treats? Or do they not want to share their Reese's? Perhaps it's true. Everything happens for a Reese's. College students, get 12 months free of Uber One for Students membership program and get deals on things you're already doing. Deals like 10 % off Eats,$0 delivery fee, and savings on Ubers even during peak times. Get 12 free months of Uber One for Students and save on Uber and Uber Eats. 12-month free membership offer for eligible students who aren't members. Available while supplies last are through 12-31-26, whichever comes first.

1:00:19Subject to change or cancellation, revocable due to fraud if not an eligible student. Feeling short on smiles? Does your frown need to be turned upside down? We got the perfect dose of comedy. 30 minutes of Scrubs. Zach Braff, Donald Faison, Sarah Chalk, and the rest of the gang at Sacred Heart are back for a brand new season. We play medical doctors who are besties. Just like in real life. And we'll definitely be up in each other's cases.

1:00:43Oliver Burkeman:Scrubs premieres Wednesday on ABC. And stream the next day on Hulu. Side effects may include laughing, cheering, and lots of high fives. Hello, Superman.

1:00:58This is the, before I forget, this is the chapter that I wanted to chat to you about. Becoming a better procrastinator. That like, just like. Sounds like an oxymoron. Yeah, exactly. Just like the idea behind this blew my mind. but help us understand what you mean by become a because everyone goes procrastination is the worst thing right putting or rather delaying what you should be doing yeah cripples most people out there i should have done i haven't done the law haven't done but you say become a bit of

1:01:28Oliver Burkeman:procrastination what do you mean by that i guess what i mean is there's sort of i i talk about good procrastination and bad procrastination so um there is a bad kind right and that is wanting to do everything so perfectly that you that you sort of never get started because if you want to really feel in control of a project yeah the number one best way to feel in control is just never to do anything right yeah because then you're like you can think and we all know people like this right they've got their dream the band they're going to start the novel they're going to write and they love the dream so they never take action because then the dream would come into contact with reality and it would be painful um and it is painful right if you do anything creative or pretty much anything.

1:02:07Oliver Burkeman:You're always going through that process of like, this is good enough, but it wasn't what I thought it could be at the beginning. But then I think good procrastination is really just the acceptance of that truth that like, given that we are finite, given that we have 24 hours in a day and have to be asleep for a chunk of them, you're almost always going to be not taking action on almost everything, right? Especially on almost everything you care about. You make a list of the things you really care about in life, in the next hour, you're going to do one, maybe two of them, and all the others are not going to get done.

1:02:40Oliver Burkeman:So making progress and staying sane and being focused in that context, I think is not about finding a way of that not being the case, because that's life. It's actually a kind of anxiety management, right? It's the ability to say, I know there are all these things that really count that are not happening. I'm going to make them wait outside the door because right now I'm doing this thing. I talk in the book about this idea, lots of us have, and I had for ages, right, of clearing the decks. This idea that if you want to really get down to something important, first of all, you have to clear the decks.

1:03:12Oliver Burkeman:You have to deal with all the little stuff that's dragging your attention, answer all the emails, and then you get down to this stuff. But you never clear the decks because there's an infinite amount of stuff on the decks. And actually, the act of clearing them makes them fill up again faster as well. So it's like the whole thing is a nightmare. The only way to make time for the things you care about is to say, okay, there's all this stuff waiting, but I'm going to make it wait a bit longer. I'm going to first of all, take an hour, take a couple of hours to make progress on this thing that I care about or to nurture this relationship that I care about, whatever it is.

1:03:43Oliver Burkeman:And then sure, I'll get a certain amount of time for all that other stuff as well. But it won't be this kind of like, first of all, I'm going to get my life under control and then I'll start doing the things that count because that is a recipe for bad procrastination. So good procrastination is just acknowledging that things are going to have to wait. If you're going to do one thing, lots of other things are going to have to wait, and that's just unavoidable. And once you see it's not avoidable, that's just such a relief because then you don't need to fight that battle all day long. You can just be apportioning your time and attention to stuff that really moves the needle for you or that you feel you really want to do or really need to do to keep your job, whatever your priorities are in the moment.

1:04:24Oliver Burkeman:but you're just doing those things in sequence. And that's a day well spent. Awareness and moderation. I think one thing that adults don't do enough is make a list. I think making a list is very powerful. Writing down the things that you think you want and the things that you think you want to achieve will quickly challenge every notion you've had about the single thing that you think you want. What do you mean? If you write, I want to do one, I want to start renovating the garage, I want to start fixing my car I want to start Once you write it down While you're writing it down You ask yourself Do I really want to do this?

1:04:59Oh But when ideas are just filled up in your head They all feel urgent at the same time

1:05:04Oliver Burkeman:Yeah, that's a really good point Yeah, yeah When you're making a grocery list It's the same thing You start with the things that you like Okay Chocolate, biscuits, blah, blah And then you get to the real things Yeah The meat, the what Oh, okay These other things, yeah But these ones, yeah So these are achievable And these are nice to have But as adults We don't make lists enough but we tell kids all the time. You want everything, everything. You want the Christmas gift? Yeah, but make a list. Make a list for Santa. And the child goes, okay, puzzle or mountain bike. A puzzle or mountain bike. Adults don't do that.

1:05:32We think we've got it all figured out. Then it ends up becoming this maze that we traverse throughout our lives of wants and needs and actually nice to haves. And then the lines get blurred. And next thing you know, we never get anything done. You also talk about it with like the choosing of it, which I found really interesting. so it's similar to what you're saying with the list but you talk about like sort of limiting how many things you can be doing at any particular time right yeah yeah right so there's a i don't

1:06:01Oliver Burkeman:know there's a couple of bits in the book that you might be thinking of but but i think there's a really good like one really simple if you want like a productivity hack if anyone does right i think one really simple approach is to keep two lists right to make one list that is open-ended could have all the things you want to do that are on your plate that you feel you should do, admin, whatever. It could be hundreds of items long. And then another list that has maybe some fixed number of slots on it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like this idea a lot. And the practice here, this is a very simple way. There are lots of other more complicated ways of doing this, but you just take 10 things from the big list, move them through, and you don't let anything else come on from the big list or the short list until you've freed up a slot by doing it.

1:06:42Oliver Burkeman:So you're sort of creating a deliberate bottleneck. you're not really creating a bottleneck. You're acknowledging that you as a human being are a bottleneck. You actually only ever can do a certain number of things at one time. Thank you. It's been my favorite thing. Yeah, that also. So I only remove one from the 10 when a space opens up from that five. Wait, no. Say you have five. Say you have an infinite list. Open list. And then say you have five. Yes. I bring over 10 to the five. No, forget 10. I made a mistake by using 10 as an example and five as an example. Forget 10. Stick with the five.

1:07:15Oliver Burkeman:You move five from the very, very long list. And then maybe you do one of them. Okay, now if you want, you can move another one. But you can't just keep adding to that list. Yeah, you can't add things to your list. So the way I remember reading it was like, you're doing a house renovation. You are also in the process. You're on this big fitness journey, whatever thing. You're going to be running a marathon. You're studying for your MBA. Yeah, whatever these things are. Great. You want to write a book. But that's all your wish list. Yeah. what all of it like what your book really showed me was like no no no you have sort of like like you're you know speaking or walking we have a finite amount of things that we can be doing at any particular time but we can infinitely think of things to do yeah but we have a capacity right and so the idea was no create your capacity and make it really limited so like three things even three like big things that you're doing in your life yeah three big like and i mean like the big things that you're doing in your life yeah that's on your list you cannot put a new thing on the list without eliminating one of these things on the list for example if you can't and you're the cheat you can't like switch them back and forth because you're just gonna like cheat yourself like every day you're just gonna be like uh no this is number two now tomorrow's number two it's like no no no you could abandon one of them that's what i mean they have to go off the list or you could complete it yeah but all it is again all these things are it's just ways of becoming conscious of the reality.

1:08:39Oliver Burkeman:That's very smart. Yeah. And then what's great about it is you're always looking at three things only. So you go, am I doing this? Am I doing this? Am I doing this? Yes. Then I'm actively living the life that I wish to be living. I know there's a whole list in my backpack. It exists. Climb Kilimanjaro. You're not trying to deny that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're acting like a monk. Open a florist, you know. Starting an affair. Starting an affair. All of those things are there. Secondary list. Right. And you're not saying that any of the things on that list are automatically less good because they're on that list.

1:09:05Oliver Burkeman:You're just saying I'm limited. Even starting an affair. Yeah, right now. Very specific things may be good or bad, right? You have marriage on your main list. And kids. You see? So until those things are knocked off, serial killer documentaries.

1:09:23A friend like you, who needs whistleblowers? It's an important issue of time. What would you say you've changed in your life since you stumbled upon it? Because you've shared it with people. You said you do it to teach yourself. What were the biggest things you let go? of? Specific things? I mean, if someone remembers the old Oliver, what would they say he let go of? What would they say he changed? What did he put less importance on?

1:09:49Oliver Burkeman:I mean, the big one, which isn't quite the answer that you're looking for, I think, is just the worry, right? Like spending actual large amounts of time just stressing and fretting and feeling anxious, which is its own use of time, right? I mean, right. It's not an activity that anyone would choose to do, I suppose, is what I mean. But, um, so there, so there is that. And then I think I've probably been more conscious and again, this parenting will do this as well. I've been a bit more conscious about friendships and social life, right? Because it really matters to me to have good friends and to nurture those friendships.

1:10:20Oliver Burkeman:But there's always that layer of social life where like nobody involved is particularly super wanting to do it, but you're all sort of going along with it. Well, if you like pickleball, you like pickleball, but you know what I mean? There's that kind of there's the way you just phrased it everyone's going along with it but no one really those friend groups are the worst because it's like you just keep meeting for like quarterly reports yeah yeah yeah exactly and you miss out on enough to not really yeah care so much but you still have to yeah no absolutely and you know not not to diss the serial killer documentaries but there is a certain kind of i do find there's a certain kind of content consumption that pretty quickly falls out when you think about this in these ways not never going on social media not never vegging out with some like fun thing on tv absolutely not but you're doing it a little bit more uh consciously yeah than you than you were and and you're not sort of watching stuff that on some level even when you're watching it you know you don't want to so i i know this may sound crazy but how this changed my consumption i started making a decision like making decisions to watch a movie that I wanted to watch that I've already watched versus just watching a new movie that's come out just because it's a new movie that's come out.

1:11:38And I know that seems like a stupid thing to say, but like for a long time, I would consume going, oh, there's a new thing I should watch. Oh, there's another thing I should watch. But the only reason I consumed it was because it was the only new thing that was available. Like the time you made us watch Mortal Kombat. Uh-uh, that was for fun. That was one of the fun ones. Where was fun then? where was the fun my man when we were talking about how bad the background was oh yeah that was fun come on yeah okay okay like come on everything in that so what I'll do is I will when I have my friends gathered I enjoy making them watch terrible things and then complaining about it with them yeah but we all I go have you seen this movie then they go no and I go it's the worst movie I've ever seen and then I go put it on I love it and then we put it on together and then they go why are we watching this then I go wait wait wait wait wait wait the worst part hasn't come yet and then we watched the movie together and I think this shared pain I can well imagine it

1:12:35Oliver Burkeman:because they keep saying why are we still watching this and I go no no no it's going to get worse it's going to get worse how did they make this movie it's going to get worse and then they go home Oliver and then they scratch me off their list I need to move him off my list they've made a conscious decision about their friendship and you make a you know you make a good point about new movies as well right There's a strong pressure to see new stuff because of all the advertising and because of that sort of – this applies to everything else. The rest of the world will try to make your choices for you, and that's going to happen anyway.

1:13:07Oliver Burkeman:So all we're talking about here is like having enough pushback to keep focusing on some of the things you want to do, right? In any day, loads of other people's agendas are going to have some role to play in it. That's okay. It's like you're not going to get rid of that. It's just that you're going to be going into it with some sense of direction about what you care about. And I think that's an important... You're making me realize that society has left the word peer pressure in our teens. It's persistent. It's persistent. It's throughout our lives. The food we eat, the content we consume. No, not yet.

1:13:42Are you missing out, bruh? See, I just did it to you now. No, I...

1:13:52You know, after Mortal Kombat. No, but what you're saying, honestly, like, I joke, but carry on. Because what you're saying is really profound. It's true. Absolutely. So we, as adults, we don't think about, you made me aware of this, the food that we eat, and when we eat it, and why we eat it. It's also just peer pressure. The adverts look good. The packaging looks nice. The cars that we aspire to have. I'm now watching how a 10-year-old 911 Porsche is actually better than a 2026. Those cars are coming up in the market now. People are going, it's actually not so bad. It was actually great. But when it was there at the time, it was not the thing.

1:14:30But now in hindsight, the peer pressure has driven up. But also the appreciation for that has driven up the prices for those cars because that's peer pressure. If someone that you look up to says this thing is great, they have it. Now those cars are hard to find in the market But if you look at the market from two years ago And even a year ago During COVID as well Those cars were dirt cheap But now because of peer pressure And it's so subliminal now And hidden in so many things And comes in so many packages It's not that kid at school who's smoking And says do you want a puff? It's the cool guy that goes Do you want to invest?

1:15:00Do you want to be wealthy when you retire? Do you want to invest your money here? Maybe buy this thing Have you ever thought about paintings? Maybe have a six pack Maybe have you seasonal tickets to this thing? You never have to worry about it again

1:15:11Oliver Burkeman:And again, it's not that you're going to become perfectly free of all that, right? You're not going to be the perfectly independent human. That doesn't exist. But if you have some conscious sense of what your main projects are at the moment, what your focus areas are, what you're willing to fail at at the moment, that's like a filter that you can bring to the world of all the things that you're being fresh into. I'd argue that what you're trying to provide here is a mental and a life GLP-1 to block those desires. Oh, I like that. I like that. Yeah, I'll settle for that. I actually like that a lot.

1:15:47Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Figuring out like how to boost your what is it? Satiation? Satiation? Satiation?

1:15:54Oliver Burkeman:Satiation? How do you say it? I'm not sure. Does it end in I-E-T-Y? Yes. Satiety. Satiety? Satiety? I've never heard that word said out loud. I always read it. Has anyone ever said it actually? I've never heard anyone and say it out loud actually. Yeah, because the list, all of us lists make sense. Yeah, it's completely that. I'm satient with these five. Yes, and what you're doing is things will come. And you're limiting how quickly your stomach empties out. Right. You're not like, it's exactly that. You have invented the GLP-1 for, that's what you're providing people, the GLP-1 for life. I love it and I love the analogy.

1:16:28Oliver Burkeman:It had not occurred to me. So that's brilliant. You know what had also not occurred to me? Was when Mortal Kombat started. My Swiss-German side of my friend. came out the Freud and Scheid what is it called Schadenfreude but do you have a memory a core memory for life oh I do that's what I've learned Oliver if you watch a movie with your friends nine times out of ten they won't remember it because most movies are not memorable at all they have to be like I mean we're talking like Peak Gladiator you know Gladiator Dark Knight like it's got to be like an extremely special film for everyone to remember it make your friends watch a terrible film with you that moment will stick in your memory forever.

1:17:10It also bonds you, right? It does. It's like you're prisoners together. We've both suffered. The only difference is I was the prisoner and the warden. I invited you in, locked the door, and then we spent 20 years with me also complaining with you, being like, man, when are we getting out? When are we getting out of here, man? They're treating us like animals. And then after 20 years, I was like, all right, this has been fun. All right, man, let's go do something else.

1:17:37oh man but yo oliver thank you i just want to say thank you man thank you for writing the books uh thank you for thinking the way you do uh and thank you you genuinely changed my life i hope

1:17:47Oliver Burkeman:i don't mean that no that's lovely i genuinely don't say there's a platitude no it's really lovely to hear i'm like i say i find it a little hard to like it always amazes me that anything i'm working through in this form helps other people but it's but it's really completely Completely, completely changed my life. I can't wait to get started now. It's the reason I'll tell anyone to read the book is because for me, 4 ,000 weeks, here's the best way to put it. It didn't make me more efficient. It didn't make me more productive. It didn't make me, none of those things. You know what it made me though?

1:18:17More relaxed. It freed me in a way. And that's the thing that I think we sometimes take for granted when it comes to self-help books or productivity or all of these things. they always help you to figure out how to do more they don't help you figure out how to want less yeah and both achieve the same outcome but one is way less stressful one is less painful it's way less painful so you're going it's not wanting less in like a give up way it's just going like no no i'm fine with these things i'm accepting it that's all i want that's what i want that's what i need that's what i'm trying to do and then someone goes why aren't you doing that ah just because i i don't want to and i don't want to have that capacity oh but you could it's like yeah, you could.

1:18:57You could do a little bit of everything. But choosing the things that you want to do a lot more of completely frees up your life in a different way. So thank you, man. Thank you. I'm excited. What are you going to work on next? What's the next book?

1:19:08Oliver Burkeman:I'm working on the book. Yeah, I'm trying to write a book that is about sort of staying sane and functional and getting stuff done in specifically the kind of crazy making times that we're living in at the moment. And I'm sort of... Like how to not be paralyzed. Yeah, and I'm sort of tracking this idea of aliveness, which is the working title for the book, right? This idea that that's the thing we need. It's the thing that is threatened by so much of the world in which we live. And that really kind of building your life around aliveness is, in some ways, I feel like it's the question that is not answered by these books, right?

1:19:44Oliver Burkeman:Which is like, well, okay, you take a saner attitude to not trying to do everything. What direction do you go in then, right? And for me, that's been a really sort of important piece of the puzzle. It's almost like once the human has freed themselves from the constraints that they've sort of like succumbed to in society, what does that human now do? We talked about this the other day in a small way. We talked about like an addiction and we're saying people take for granted that one of the things an addiction will give you in life is something to do. And purpose. And when you remove the addiction, sometimes what we don't do is then like find a way for people to have.

1:20:28To replace it. Yeah. The replacement that's not, it's not an addiction, but it's like your time and your purpose were filled up by something.

1:20:33Oliver Burkeman:Right. And I think that especially today, I mean, this is the big difference with this book I'm working on is that it's written like now instead of a few years ago. Yeah. And so much stuff. I mean, we haven't talked about AI and I'm kind of glad that we haven't talked about AI. But that's just one example of something that is like changing the fabric of how people interact with the world so much, not all in good ways. And it really bringing up this issue of like, OK, what actually makes you feel alive as opposed to sort of trudging through your day towards some future moment of like everything being OK?

1:21:07Oliver Burkeman:What makes you alive right in the middle of all this crazy chaos that we that we live in in so many ways? I'm looking forward to it. This has been great. Thank you. Thank you so much for inviting me. I've really enjoyed it. It's been great. A lot of fun.

1:21:21People, we need to talk about it. Mondays need better PR. Because let's be honest, nobody likes Mondays. Mondays come with alarms. Mondays come with calendars. Mondays come with emails from coworkers who were definitely productive all weekend. Thanks, John. Friday is a celebration. Saturday is a lifestyle. Sunday has brunch. Monday has meetings. And that's kind of the problem, right? Monday didn't even get a fair shot. It got assigned a personality and nobody ever checked if it was accurate. So yeah, Mondays are due for an overhaul. And what if we didn't just fix Monday's reputation? What if we completely reimagine what a Monday can be?

1:22:08Like instead of waking up thinking, what do I have to survive today, you wake up thinking, yo, what do I get to do today? And not in a small way, my friends. No, I'm talking about Monday being the day someone hits you up and says, yo, pack a bag. We're going somewhere. Not later, not sometime this summer, not when we finally find time, Monday. You're going somewhere you've never been, doing something you've always talked about, but never actually booked. That experience you keep saying, one day too. Monday says, actually, today is that day. Suddenly, Monday changes shape. Monday changes how you see it.

1:22:56It's not just emails and meetings anymore. It's possibility. It's movement. It's the day something unexpectedly shows up on your calendar in a good way. The alarm hits different when you know it might be leading you somewhere that you didn't plan. That's the feeling we're looking for. John's emails are still there, obviously. I mean, we're not miracle workers. But even John might wait until Tuesday if Monday's out here offering you once-in-a-lifetime experiences. And that's why, my friends, I like what Verizon is doing here. Because maybe Monday doesn't need better PR. Maybe it just needs better things to happen on Mondays.

1:23:35This segment is brought to you by Verizon. Introducing Verizon Shine, where now every Monday you can snag once-in-a-lifetime experiences like NFL tickets across the globe. That's the planet. All-inclusive music festivals and the chance to meet your favorite stars. Celebrities, not solar system. Plus, daily drops, tickets and pre-sale access all week only from Verizon enroll today on the Verizon app or at verizon.com Pure Friday who? What? What Now with Trevor Noah is produced by DayZero Productions in partnership with SiriusXM The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaz Yamin and Jess Hackle Rebecca Chain is our producer Our development researcher is Marcia Robiu Music, mixing and mastering by Hannes Brown Random Other Stuff by Ryan Harduth Thank you so much for listening Join me next week for another episode of What Now?

1:24:56trick-or-treats no one's home i see you inside eating your reese's why do people ignore trick-or-treaters Do they not have treats? Or do they not want to share their Reese's? Perhaps it's true. Everything happens for a Reese's. College students, get 12 months free of Uber One for Students membership program and get deals on things you're already doing. Deals like 10 % off Eats,$0 delivery fee, and savings on Ubers even during peak times. Get 12 free months of Uber One for Students and save on Uber and Uber Eats. 12-month free membership offer for eligible students who aren't members. Available while supplies last or through 12-31-26, whichever comes first.

1:25:32subject to change or cancellation, revocable due to fraud if not an eligible student.