You Get 4000 Weeks Alive – So Stop Worrying About Dumb Sh*t and Do These Things
The last life advice article you'll ever need to read
12 hours of vomiting every 30 minutes.
The last few days have been hell for me, thanks to food poisoning. Every time I got out of bed I started chucking up. All my work, on hold. My email inbox, a bomb site. My perfect little morning routine, dead. Gym habit, dead.
Being crazy sick puts everything into perspective.
I spoke with my friend a few hours ago. He’s a 30-year chain smoker. For years he could hide it well … but now it’s starting to show.
His voice doesn’t sound good. He keeps bizarrely getting pneumonia. His weight is out of control. He has no energy to run his home construction business.
If our health sucks life sucks.
Yet it’s only when you’re so sick you can’t leave bed for a week that you’re reminded of one important fact: the average person lives for 4000 weeks.
Here’s what your life looks like visualized
Life is pretty simple when you look at it from this 10,000-foot view.
We don’t get a lot of time. 4000 weeks isn’t 400,000 weeks, which is how most people live. The weeks go fast. You’re likely in the red or purple zone above. After purple comes an unlikely end.
It puts everything in perspective.
You’re sitting around thinking everyone is watching your every move and gives a damn about your goals. They don’t. They, too, only have 4000 weeks to live. Their countdown clock is already running.
The visualization above kind of looks like a Tetris game – that’s no coincidence. Life at its core IS a video game.
Instead of obsessing over how you look, like a goddamn reality tv star, obsess over playing the right game. Instead of trying to do everything, pick one life game, stick to it, and do everything you can to win.
As soon as you forget life is a video game, you get lost in philosophical nonsense that takes your attention off your 4000-week countdown clock. Doesn’t mean you actually countdown the weeks like a doomsday crazy person hiding in a bunker, living in fear.
But it does mean you get on with the show and stop giving yourself 10-year timeframes for goals that could be achieved in 6 months.
Question: Why the hell are you worrying about dumb sh*t?
My job is painful some weeks.
As a writer, I get a lot of emails and messages. The level of excuses I hear most days makes me want to pull my eyeballs out of their sockets.
People worry about the dumbest stuff. (This illustration shows the process…)
They’re thinking about their bad boss who has complete control over them. Hello! The internet has democratised work. There are millions of employers one click away on your phone who’ll happily accept a job application and hire you.
If your boss is up your ass and ruining your life, divorce them. It’s not 1996 anymore. We all have endless career options (that doesn’t include making money online either).
Then there’s the good ol’ “Waiting for the right time?”
Waiting to get hit by a bus?
What the F you waiting for? There is no right time except right now while you’re alive and breathing, soldier. By waiting for the right time, we transfer all of our power to a future version of ourselves who is an imaginary Sesame Street kids cartoon character.
The next dumb thing is classic: I’m not sure I’ll like XYZ activity (example: writing). Well screw around and figure it out. You don’t know what you don’t know. You only know you like something by doing it. So….as Nike says…JUST DO IT.
Another mass murderer of happiness is “thinking about a decision.” Overthinking doesn’t lead to insight. As Sahil Bloom says:
Decisions are generally reversible, inaction is not.
It’s the stuff you don’t do that screws up your life and leads to regrets that stab you in the heart a hundred times while your toddler watches and can’t stop crying. T-T-T-Today Junior, as Adam Sandler says in Billy Madison. Now is the only time.
Let’s finish this section with the dumbest sh*t of all that’s not worth worrying about:
Money.
People are so afraid of losing money that they never make any real money.
When they hear something costs money, they’re surprised and run. They’re so focused on expenses instead of ROIs. If you spend $15,000 on a coach and you make $1M in the next year, then was it worth it?
Trick question ( I don’t sell 1-1 coaching by the way so this isn’t a sales pitch). The greatest expense of your 4000-week journey on this earth is the cost of inaction.
It’s the cost of what you could have done in life if you didn’t screw it up by being a tightarse and thinking access to money is limited.
Bottom line….
"Busy"
"I can't"
"It's too hard"
"This isn't fair"
"I'm struggling"
"I don't have time"
"I'm overwhelmed"
"Life got in the way"
"What if it doesn't work?"
"I'm getting my ducks in a row."
These are the phrases people say who waste their 4000 weeks alive and take their dreams to the cemetery. Don’t be one of them.
Do these things (instead of waste your 4000 weeks)
If you only get 4000 weeks alive, then what really matters? Here are my recommendations to make your life extraordinary:
1. Do the f*cking thing you’ve always wanted to do
I was gonna end the list here.
Honestly, this is the only one that matters. We all have one thing we’ve always wanted to do but haven’t done. Your 4000-week goal is to make sure you do that one thing.
No delays. No somedays. No phone-a-friend.
Do the most important thing. Make it a priority. Tell your boss to go kiss his own ass. Tell your parents you love them, but you’ll do things your way. Tell your family you love them, but that you must do this thing and you need their full support.
What we haven’t touched on yet is that 4000 weeks is a best-case scenario. The stats show (someone else can look ‘em up cause I can’t be assed) that many of us won’t even make it to 4000 weeks.
We won’t get a warning either.
Just look at the Royal Family. One big happy family. Now, in the space of 2 weeks, cancers, succession plans, maybe a new king. And they’re the richest mofos on the planet and even they can’t cheat the 4000-week formula.
What makes you think you can?No more delays. Make your dream a goal for today. Then keep your winning streak of daily commitment going until you run out of days or hit 4000 weeks.
2. Play with your kids more (if you have them)
There are kids in my neighborhood who haven’t played with their mothers or fathers for years. It’s sad.
Their parents are so busy working or saving up for the new Tesla, that they’ve forgotten about their little bundles of joy.
If you have a kid and forget them for long enough, one day they won’t talk to you anymore because TikTok coaches told them you’re an a-hole (happened to my friend).
3. Work less
My hand shakes when I write this one.
So many people are working their lives away for a company and cause that’s irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. We work too hard because we think we need some giant security blanket for a disaster that’ll probably never happen.
All of us can work less – even me.
4. Spend more time with your parents
Parents don’t live forever.
Record a 6-hour podcast with them and ask them all the questions you’ve wanted to know. This will serve as a cornerstone memory when they’re gone (don’t post the podcast online … it’s just for you).
5. Start the online business
The most common person I meet on the internet is someone who wants to quit their job and start an online business.
But most never do. They never get to test their business skills. They never get to put their curly ones on the line and see if their idea sticks.
If you start a business and it fails, you can always go back to another job and try again in a year. Nothing to lose, a lot to gain.
6. Get lost in Mexico while nude for a year
All of us should travel.
It’s where we learn about other cultures and escape our bubble. Gets you out of your comfort zone too. Schedule more time overseas. Dare to study other cultures while traveling so you become less racist.
Conclusion
4000 weeks isn’t long. All of you are past the first 1000 weeks. Most of you are at 2000 weeks or more. And some of you are in your final quarter.
Make your life count and stop worrying about dumb sh*t.
Tell me in the comments section below whether the 4000 weeks alive idea resonates with you and why.
Before we finish up, a note for online writers
If you're posting, but nobody is listening, read this:
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The agenda:
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How to add “authentic spice” to your posts
How to shake poor writing habits
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Come for tough love. Leave with better engagement.
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I'm currently reading Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman so this is definitely resonating.
I'm also a big fan of traveling - my gf and I did the move to Mexico for a year (ironic) and are now back to help care for her mother. Life is short! Thanks for the great article, Tim.
Yep. I relate to it. A few weeks ago had a relative drop dead suddenly from a heart attack no- one saw coming. Started getting my own dicky ticker symptoms (sympathy pains?) and that frightened the bejeesus out of me. Now I'm doing stuff I wouldn't have before (like leaving this comment, Truth to Truth). And also getting tests and adjusting my habits in the healthy direction.
Do one thing each day that scares you, I've heard it said. Maybe do a few.