Free Will, Time, and the Quiet Power of Now
Two very different books sat side by side on my reading list: Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman and The Midnight Library by Matt Haig.
Michael and I just finished The Midnight Library in our book club. The book felt like a quiet companion rather than a loud teacher. It explored regret, possibility, and the many lives we imagine we could have lived. What stayed with me wasn’t the fantasy of infinite choices, but the gentle reminder that being alive at all is the miracle. That meaning isn’t found by escaping this life for another—it’s found by fully inhabiting the one we’re already in. This book didn’t rush me toward answers. It invited me to stay.
Four Thousand Weeks is practical and philosophical. Midnight Library is fictional and tender. Yet they converged on the same truth—and it landed deeply.
We are not meant to experience everything.
Burkeman reminds us that the average human lifespan amounts to roughly four thousand weeks. That number is both sobering and strangely clarifying. It forces a reckoning: no matter how productive, intentional, or optimized we are, most options will remain forever unchosen.
And that’s not a failure. That’s reality.
The Midnight Library explores this truth from another angle—the ache of imagining all the lives we could have lived. Every door opened reveals another version of self, another path, another set of outcomes. At first, that sounds liberating. But eventually, it becomes exhausting. Meaning doesn’t multiply with infinite choice. It dissolves.
What struck me most in reading these books together is this: Our free will is a superpower—but only when it’s paired with presence.
We live in a world that celebrates options. Endless scrolling. Infinite possibilities. Constant comparison. We’re subtly trained to believe that fulfillment is just one better choice away. One different decision. One alternate timeline.
But life doesn’t actually happen in the hypothetical. It happens now.
The essence of life is not found in trying to sample every possible experience. It’s found in choosing—again and again—to fully inhabit the one we’re already in. When we commit to what we’re doing now—the work, the conversation, the season, the calling—we stop leaking energy into regret and fantasy. We stop measuring our lives against imaginary versions of ourselves. We begin to live from the inside out.
This doesn’t mean resignation. It doesn’t mean “settling.” It means devotion to the present moment.
Free will isn’t about keeping all doors open. It’s about walking through one door with awareness, courage, and care.
There is quiet power in saying:
This is what I am choosing.
This is where my time is going.
This is the life I am inhabiting today.
Not because it’s perfect.
But because it’s real.
And when we meet our real lives with attention—when we enjoy what we’re doing now to the best of our ability—meaning emerges naturally. Not from maximizing outcomes, but from honoring presence.
We don’t need more time.
We don’t need more options.
We need fewer regrets about roads not taken—and more reverence for the road beneath our feet.
That, to me, is the quiet wisdom both books offer.
