Enough AlreadyDecember 3, 2003 "The cost of a thing," wrote Henry David Thoreau (I'm paraphrasing him) "is the amount of life I have to give up to pay for it." With those words, he presaged what Charles Handy came to call the Doctrine of Enough: the idea that the more modest your lifestyle, the less you need to earn; and the less you need to earn, the vaster your array of fulfilling career options.
No idea has had a more liberating impact on me over these last fifteen years. If my working life is now based on fulfillment rather than achievement, it is the Doctrine of Enough that has made that possible. Mind you, I'm lucky. When God assembled me, he forgot to insert shopping genes. I don't find it hard to live a slightly minimalist lifestyle. Which is why I drive a 1987 car, my TV is devoid of plasma, and my wardrobe humiliates my 12-year-old daughter. Does Alan Greenspan lie awake at night sweating in terror at the prospect that US consumers will convert en masse to the Doctrine of Enough? I don't think so, Tim. Nowhere is the god of More more venerated than in |