I recently had a radical thought—what if the concept of “management” is either flawed or excessively emphasized in our society? To explore this idea, I looked up its dictionary definitions and found the following:

• Oxford English Dictionary (OED): “The process of dealing with or controlling things or people.”
• Merriam-Webster Dictionary: “The act or art of managing: the conducting or supervising of something (such as a business).”
• Cambridge Dictionary: “The control and organization of something, especially a business and its employees.”
• Collins English Dictionary: “Management is the control and operation of a business or organization.”
• Dictionary.com: “The act or manner of managing; handling, direction, or control.”
• Business Dictionary: “The organization and coordination of the activities of a business in order to achieve defined objectives.”

Common Themes in These Definitions

Looking at these definitions, three key themes emerge:

1. Control – Dealing with, handling, or supervising things.
2. Organization – Structuring things for efficiency.
3. Business-Oriented – Often associated with managing organizations but also applied to personal life.

While these themes are useful in professional settings, I can’t help but question their relevance when applied to personal aspects of life. Are we overemphasizing management at the cost of deeper understanding and transformation?

The Problem with “Managing” Everything

We frequently talk about “managing” our work, time, health, money, and relationships. However, this often results in a cycle of surface-level control rather than real change. Instead of addressing the root causes, we keep juggling tasks, staying stuck in familiar patterns.

So, is the issue with the idea of management itself, or the way we apply it?

A Common Struggle: Is “Managing” Enough?

Let’s take a relatable example: Suppose I have unpredictable work hours, high stress, no work-life balance, and health issues like obesity. My life revolves around working all week and hoping to truly live only on weekends.

Seeing my constant stress, a colleague suggests I try meditation. So, I enroll in an online class and start practicing meditation to “manage” my stress. Whenever I feel overwhelmed, I use these techniques to calm myself. I’m handling stress as it arises.

It helped , but what really changes here?

• My job remains stressful.
• The workload doesn’t decrease.
• My health issues persist.
• My family life remains strained.

Yet, I am practicing “stress management,” right?

This is like trying to fill a bucket with a hole in the bottom. You’re managing stress, but the root causes—a stressful job, unhealthy lifestyle, and lack of balance—remain untouched. In reality, nothing fundamentally changes; you’re merely coping better with the same problems.

Sadly, most people surrender to this way of living, falling into what psychologists call “learned helplessness”—the belief that, given their circumstances, there’s only so much they can do, and real change is out of reach.

Learned Helplessness is a psychological phenomenon in which an individual, after repeated exposure to uncontrollable and adverse events, develops a passive resignation and believes they have little or no ability to change their circumstances, even when opportunities for control become available. This concept, first identified by Martin Seligman and Steven Maier in their experiments with dogs, has since been applied to human behavior in various domains, including mental health, education, workplace dynamics, and personal relationships. Learned helplessness is associated with feelings of powerlessness, reduced motivation, and an increased risk of depression and anxiety.

The Trap of Management: Sustaining Dysfunction

This example highlights a key flaw in how “management” is often practiced—it helps sustain dysfunction rather than resolve it. Instead of fixing the hole in the bucket (the root cause), we just keep pouring in more water (temporary solutions).

Most people are caught in this cycle: stress management, time management, work-life balance—all of these focus on coping rather than transformation. The problem isn’t always the stress itself, but the flawed system that creates it. Management, as we know it, keeps everything running just well enough that we don’t feel the urgency to change—but the core problems never go away.

Beyond Management: Thinkers Who Challenge the Status Quo

It’s not just me who had this radical idea. For decades, we’ve been told that the key to success and happiness lies in better management—time management, stress management, work-life balance, financial management, and even relationship management.

Several thinkers have challenged the very premise of management, arguing that true change comes not from optimizing within a broken system but from questioning the system itself.

Oliver Burkeman: The Illusion of Time Management

In Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, Oliver Burkeman argues that time management is an illusion—no matter how efficiently you structure your day, you will never “conquer” time. The modern obsession with productivity tricks and calendar optimizations only leads to an endless cycle of trying to fit more in, without questioning why we feel compelled to do so. Burkeman suggests that instead of managing time, we should accept our finitude and prioritize what truly matters. This directly aligns with the idea that management often reinforces busyness instead of creating meaningful change.

David Graeber: The Meaninglessness of Managing Work

In Bullshit Jobs, David Graeber critiques the modern work culture where people spend their lives managing tasks that serve no real purpose. Instead of trying to optimize their work routines, he suggests questioning why so much of modern labor feels pointless in the first place. His argument challenges the idea that better work management leads to fulfillment—perhaps true fulfillment comes from redefining work itself.

Kim John Payne: Stop Managing Family, Start Reclaiming Presence

In Simplicity Parenting, Kim John Payne exposes how modern families fall into the trap of over-scheduling, structuring, and managing childhood. Parents are taught to juggle commitments, organize playdates, and maintain “work-life balance,” but in doing so, they lose the essence of deep connection. Payne advocates for simplifying life—reducing distractions and commitments to focus on presence rather than constant management.

Dr. Gabor Maté: Stop Managing Symptoms, Address Root Causes

Mainstream health culture promotes stress management, disease management, and coping strategies, but Dr. Gabor Maté argues that these approaches only sustain the cycle of illness.

In When the Body Says No, he explains how chronic stress and disease often stem from emotional repression, trauma, and lifestyle choices, not just external stressors. Instead of managing symptoms, he calls for deep healing and lifestyle transformation—fixing the soil, rather than just watering a dying plant.

Vicki Robin & Joe Dominguez: Redefining Wealth Beyond Financial Management

Conventional financial wisdom tells us to budget better, save more, and invest wisely—but Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez, in Your Money or Your Life, challenge this approach entirely.

Instead of optimizing financial management, they ask a deeper question: What is money actually for? They advocate for financial independence through redefining wealth and aligning spending with values, rather than just managing money better within the same consumption-driven system.

Esther Perel: Beyond Relationship Management

Relationships are often framed as something to be worked on—as if better conflict resolution techniques or communication strategies will fix everything.

But in Mating in Captivity, Esther Perel argues that passion and connection aren’t products of better management but of a shift in perspective. Instead of structuring intimacy and setting rigid relationship expectations, she suggests embracing mystery, spontaneity, and emotional complexity—transforming how we relate to each other rather than just negotiating the details.

Bessel van der Kolk: Healing Trauma Beyond Symptom Management

In The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel van der Kolk challenges the mainstream approach to mental health, which often focuses on managing symptoms rather than healing the root causes of trauma. Conventional psychiatry relies heavily on medication and cognitive therapy to help people function, but van der Kolk argues that trauma is not just a psychological issue—it’s stored in the body itself. True healing, he suggests, doesn’t come from suppressing symptoms but from rewiring the nervous system through body-based therapies like EMDR, yoga, and somatic experiencing. This aligns perfectly with the idea that management sustains dysfunction rather than resolving it—just as stress management doesn’t fix a toxic job, trauma management doesn’t heal trauma. Instead of merely coping, we must engage in deep transformation, addressing the body-mind connection to truly break free from past wounds.

Stoicism: Beyond Management, Toward Inner Transformation

Even Stoicism, one of history’s most practical philosophies, offers a perspective that aligns with the idea of moving beyond mere management toward true transformation.

Rather than obsessing over controlling external circumstances—work, relationships, or health—Stoicism teaches that real power lies in transforming our internal responses.

Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus emphasized that suffering often comes not from events themselves but from our perception of them. Instead of managing stress, a Stoic would ask: Why does this stress me? Rather than juggling responsibilities endlessly, they would examine what truly matters and eliminate unnecessary burdens.

This shift—from coping with life to reframing life—echoes the core argument here: rather than managing problems, we must redesign how we engage with them.

The Alternative: From Management to Transformation

Each of these thinkers highlights the same fundamental truth: Management is often a trap. It gives the illusion of control while keeping us locked in unsatisfying systems. What if we ask deeper questions:

• Instead of managing time, what if we accepted our limits and prioritized meaning?
• Instead of managing work stress, what if we questioned the structure of work itself?
• Instead of managing family schedules, what if we reclaimed presence?
• Instead of managing symptoms, what if we addressed the real causes of dysfunction?

In the end, true change doesn’t come from mastering management—it comes from choosing transformation.

A First Step

If management is about maintaining a broken system, what should we do instead? I believe we need to shift from managing to reflecting and redesigning.

One way to do this is by practicing a Mental Reflection Index (MRI) of life—an idea I will explore in a future post. Regular self-reflection can help us break the cycle of management and move towards meaningful change by asking ourselves:

• Am I living by default or by design?
• What am I doing
• What I should be doing?
• What do I truly want?

Most people live on autopilot, mistaking it for a comfort zone, when in reality, it’s a fear zone. The biggest hurdle to real change is not the lack of solutions but our anticipation of discomfort.

Final Thoughts

Looking back at those dictionary definitions—do they reinforce the idea that management is about maintaining rather than transforming? Perhaps it’s time to rethink our approach.

Instead of just “managing” problems, we should strive to pause, reflect, and redesign our lives in ways that create real, lasting change.

Isn’t that a more powerful approach than simply coping? It’s radical.

Stay Tuned!

People Mentioned

• Oliver Burkeman
• David Graeber
• Kim John Payne
• Dr. Gabor Maté
• Vicki Robin & Joe Dominguez

Books Referenced