The 4-Hour Work Week

I read this much-celebrated book ‘The 4-Hour Work Week’ by Timothy Ferriss lately.

Perhaps it is intended for a younger audience but for me, a writer close to fifty after twenty five years of corporate life, most of the details in the book were too much work to read. I found only the last section – liberate – truly meaningful and valuable, perhaps again got to do with stage of life. Besides the last ten years and the pandemic have made most of the stuff on outsourcing and remote work outdated. The steps on finding niche market are mainstream now, and sound a bit like a set of get rich quick tips. Overall I was disappointed, maybe because I expected more after all the five stars and bestseller rankings.

Nevertheless, there were some very profound and meaningful, wise lines in the book, especially in the Liberate section at the end, which I have reproduced below.

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The goal is to be neither the boss nor the employee, but the owner.

It is far more lucrative and fun to leverage your strengths instead of attempting to fix all the chinks in your armor.

There is not enough time to do all the nothing we want to do.

Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another.

Freedom is like a new sport. In the beginning, the sheer newness of it is exciting enough to keep things interesting at all times. Once you have learned the basics, though, it becomes clear that to be even a half-decent player requires some serious practice.

ONCE YOU ELIMINATE the 9–5 and the rubber hits the road, it’s not all roses and white-sand bliss, though much of it can be. Without the distraction of deadlines and co-workers, the big questions (such as “What does it all mean?”) become harder to fend off for a later time. In a sea of infinite options, decisions also become harder—What the hell should I do with my life? It’s like senior year in college all over again.

Common doubts and self- flagellation include the following: Am I really doing this to be more free and lead a better life, or am I just lazy? Did I quit the rat race because it’s bad, or just because I couldn’t hack it? Did I just cop out?

In the process of searching for a new focus, it is almost inevitable that the “big” questions will creep in. There is pressure from pseudo-philosophers everywhere to cast aside the impertinent and answer the eternal. Two popular examples are “What is the meaning of life?” and “What is the point of it all?”

There are many more, ranging from the introspective to the ontological, but I have one answer for almost all of them—I don’t answer them at all.

What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.

It still leaves the question, “What can I do with my time to enjoy life and feel good about myself?” I can’t offer a single answer that will fit all people, but, based on the dozens I’ve interviewed, there are two components that are fundamental: continual learning and service.

Service to me is simple: doing something that improves life besides your own.

There is no right answer to the question “What should I do with my life?” Forget “should” altogether. The next step—and that’s all it is—is pursuing something, it matters little what, that seems fun or rewarding. Don’t be in a rush to jump into a full-time long-term commitment. Take time to find something that calls to you, not just the first acceptable form of surrogate work. That calling will, in turn, lead you to something else.

Focus on life outside of your bank accounts, as scary as that void can be in the initial stages. If you cannot find meaning in your life, it is your responsibility as a human being to create it, whether that is fulfilling dreams or finding work that gives you purpose and self-worth – ideally a combination of both.

You’d better slow down. Don’t dance so fast. Time is short. The music won’t last. When you run so fast to get somewhere You miss half the fun of getting there. When you worry and hurry through your day, It is like an unopened gift thrown away. Life is not a race. Do take it slower. Hear the music Before the song is over.

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