I get emails from The Rich Roll Podcast promoting new episodes, just so the the show doesn’t get lost in the shuffle of other podcasts I listen to regularly. But the headline for the episode featuring his conversation with Oliver Burkeman stopped me cold:
“Time is Going to Win.”
I’ve read Four Thousand Weeks, and like a lot of people, I appreciate how Oliver dismantles the myth that we can out-hustle time or “get it all done.” In that sense, our work overlaps: we both challenge the old productivity story that more tasks, more systems, and more speed somehow guarantee a meaningful life.
But listening to this new episode made me notice something important about where our perspectives diverge.
Oliver often frames time as something bigger than us — something we can’t beat, something that ultimately “wins.” And he’s not wrong: there’s honesty in recognizing scale, finitude, and the humbling truth that we’re not in charge of the cosmic clock.
Still, my work lives somewhere else.
A Different Way to See Time
I don’t see time as something trying to win at all.
Not an adversary.
Not a competitor.
Not a silent opponent waiting to outscore us.
Time isn’t “against” us. And we’re not “against” it.
For me, time is a partner.
Something we move with, not fight against. Something we cultivate a relationship with — the way a seasoned craftsperson develops feel, rhythm, intuition, and pattern recognition over years of practice.
You don’t dominate a craft. You devote yourself to it. And in return, the craft shapes you.
That’s how I see time.
A medium. A companion. A collaborator that constantly invites us into alignment — not to win, but to listen. Not to hustle, but to participate. Not to conquer, but to co-author the days we’re given.
When you stop trying to beat time, something surprising opens up: You gain access to the part of your life that was never about winning at all.
That’s where meaning grows. Where attention sharpens. Where intention becomes devotion. Where presence becomes possible.
And that’s the space where your relationship with time starts to change — not because you’ve finally learned how to control it, but because you learned how to be in conversation with it.
We can’t beat time. But maybe we were never meant to.
Because the moment you stop treating time like an enemy… it finally has room to become an ally.
I’m digging deeper into this in this week’s edition of The Lantern — how contrast shapes the way we think about time, attention, and even the music that was playing in the world the week I arrived. If you’re curious, you can subscribe using the form below.
