Money

Here is a quote I like by Os Guinness.
“The overall lesson of insatiability is that money alone cannot buy the deepest things we desire. Money never purchases love, or eternity, or God. It is the wrong means, the wrong road, the wrong search. That is why the pursuit is vanity. ‘Nothing gained’ is the final lesson of insatiability.

Yet the pursuit continues. We keep upping the ante. The horizon recedes as we approach. We still don’t stop. As Sam Walton’s wife Helen admitted, ‘I kept saying, Sam, we’re making a good living. Why go out, why expand so much more? The stores are getting farther and farther away. After the seventeenth store, though, I realized there wasn’t going to be any stopping it.’
When John D. Rockefeller, Sr., was asked how much money it takes to make a man happy, he gave the immortal reply, ‘Just a little bit more.’ It is always over the next horizon, after we’ve conquered the next summit. It’s always tomorrow.”

Why Work

I am currently reading “Why Work? The Perceptions of a ‘Real Job’ and the Rhetoric of Work through the Ages.” I am reading this as I continue to seek answers to many questions I have regarding Americans and their working habits. This book is a great starting point because it quotes from so many other books on the subject. I now have many more books I want to read on the subject.

I really like the chapter on Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois. The chapter contrasts the two leaders’ philosophies on work, but I tend to agree with both of them so far. The following is a quote that I appreciate. I think it puts words to many of the ideals I have adopted over the last 10 years. Maybe the word adopted is a bit strong because I haven’t always put them into practice perfectly.

In a speech to the youth of his day, Du Bois asked them to consider certain ideals, including the ideal of poverty, the exact opposite of the ideal of wealth which is promoted in the United States. Let them seek a simple life, he argued. The second ideal is the ideal of work, which he explained as putting every effort into what is worth doing. The third is the ideal of knowledge. He instructed students to question the taken-for granted even if it is religious dogma. He encouraged critical systematic and creative thinking. Finally he discussed the ideal of sacrifice, the kind where one surrenders personal ease and gratification for the betterment of humanity.