Reviewing books purchased but not yet read, they are definitely demonstrating a more reflective mood.
Clayton M Christenson’s How will you measure your life? is actually an article published in the Harvard Business Review automatically delivered to my Kindle with The Innovator’s Dilemma. The latter is a superb read, challenging the almost-universal corporate wisdom of pursuing higher-price, higher-quality, higher-margin business.
In this more personal essay, Mr Christenson, a Harvard professor, seeks to apply lessons from management, including strategic thinking, resource allocation and motivational theory, to how we live our lives.
Enough (John Bogle), subtitled True Measures Of Money, Business and Life follows a similar thesis.
In a long career at Vanguard, he has noted how destructive an obsession with financial success can be and offers his insights on money and what we should consider the true treasures in our lives. And he examines what it really means to have ‘enough’ in a world increasingly focused on status and score-keeping.
The Number (Lee Eisenberg), subtitled What Do You Need for the Rest Of Your Life and What Will It Cost? details (US) rules around retirement savings, but also explores wider themes about living a purposeful life. One reviewer suggests that “while you are pondering feathering your nest for the long term, you may want to give more attention to Eisenberg’s thoughts on purpose than to his thoughts on payoffs”.
I am now starting on How much is enough? by Robert and Edward Skidelsky. An economist and a philosopher, they ask why Westerners work so many hours a week, leading lives that revolve around money, business and financial decisions in defiance of Keynes’ assertion made in 1930 that there would come a time (2015) when capitalism would provide for all our needs and the work week drop to 10 or even five hours.
But I am not blind to the irony that the feeling I should be reading more is prompted by easy online buying options, tempting me to buy what ‘people like me’ bought, along with wall-to-wall ads for the Kindle Paperwhite, incessantly reminding me of the inferiority of old-fashioned paper or even my old Kindle.
The drive to want more and better is powerful, but often comes at significant financial and personal cost. But what would our lives and financial plans look like if enough really was enough?
The drive to want more and better is powerful, but often comes at significant financial and personal cost.Gill Cardy is network development director of ValidPath