Enough is a Decision
On How Much is Enough, Poetry in Prose and a Poem for the Soul, Reading Recommendations and What I'm Doing
Welcome to the ninth edition of the ‘Read. Learn. Enjoy.’ letter.
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Enough is a Decision, Not an Amount
A postcard on how much is enough.
John Bogle, who founded Vanguard Group on the idea of low-cost index funds, told an anecdote about when money is enough.
At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, Kurt Vonnegut informs his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his popular novel Catch-22 over its whole history.
Heller responds, “Yes, but I have something he will never have … enough.”
This anecdote aptly brings out the dilemma in life.
Our early life is spent preparing to earn a living, and the rest is spent on a treadmill-of-desires-and-consumption where getting on is easy, but getting off is difficult.
Getting off the treadmill-of-desires-and-consumption is difficult for two reasons:
We don’t know how much is enough.
Life is filled with uncertainties.
We can never accurately guess how much is needed to take care of day to day survival, to educate children and give them an initial start in life, to provision for health and to carry us through old age towards the inevitable end of the journey.
Often when a money-goal is within reach, the goalpost is moved further out (like the picture below).
Lifestyle creep.
When we are earning little, at the beginning of our working life, we are usually living frugally. However, as income increases, desires multiply.
A competitive keep-up-with-thy-neighbour syndrome coupled with a constant replay of picture-perfect Instagram lives of celebrities creates an insatiable desire to expand lifestyle.
There is constant sense of discontentment with what we have. No sooner than a goal is achieved it is replaced by the next one. After a road trip to a local destination, one desires to fly to see a wonder of the world, and then one wants to fly business class and after that may be a private jet.
Seneca, the philosopher, also grappled with this two thousand years ago.
The ideal amount of money is that which neither falls within the range of poverty nor far exceeds it.
Moreover, we shall be satisfied with this limit if we previously practised thrift, without which no amount of wealth is enough, and no amount is not ample enough.
Hence..
Enough is a decision, not an amount.
You need to decide when you have enough.
Enough is in the mind.
Enough does not mean you stop having goals for a better life. It is about choosing what is really important for you instead of blindly chasing money.
Enough is balancing ambitious goals with a mindset that:
Stops comparison with others.
Enjoys the journey you are on.
Develops the skill of contentment.
Enough in Other Aspects of Life
Having enough applies not only to money, but to other aspects of life as well.
One area is photographs.
We spend more time capturing and sharing an experience, instead of experiencing it.
What is more important - being present in the experience or capturing it for posterity?
At some point in life the world’s beauty becomes enough.
You don’t need to photograph, paint, or even remember it.
It is enough.
- Toni Morrison
After all,
The One Who Knows He Has Enough is Truly Rich.
Poetry in Prose
Prose that indistinguishable from poetry.
To divert the beam of your attention to nature, to take in the staggering scale of spacetime under the starlit sky or the miniature cosmos of aliveness on the scale of moss or the blooming of a single potted flower, is to step beyond the smallness of your own experience, beyond its all-consuming sorrows and its all-important fixations, and into a calibrated perspective that arrives like a colossal exhale from the lung of life.
- Maria Popova
Source: Brainpickings.org
Poem for the Soul
A beautiful poem by Sara Teasdale.
Strephon kissed me in the spring,
Robin in the fall,
But Colin only looked at me
And never kissed at all.
Strephon's kiss was lost in jest,
Robin's lost in play,
But the kiss in Colin's eyes
Haunts me night and day.
- The Look
Reading Recommendation
Coffee Can Investing by Saurabh Mukherjea
A book about a successful ‘Coffee Can Investing’ strategy adapted for Indian markets.
“Coffee Can Investing Portfolio” is a term coined by Robert G. Kirby when he found an investor, who had a portfolio of the same stocks that Robert had recommended and bought, out-performed Robert’s own portfolio. The difference was the investor adopted a ‘buy-and-forget’ strategy, while Robert used an active ‘buy-and-sell’ strategy.
The concept has its roots in American Wild West where people used to hide their valuables in the coffee cans and then the cans were put under a mattress to be kept for years or even decades.
Key takeaways below.
On investing
It is critical for an investor to nail down objectives and bake them into a financial plan.
It is important to not adhere to the age-old wisdom of investing heavily in fixed deposits, real estate and gold.
Equity remains the most powerful driver of long-term sustainable returns. However, investors need to be patient and systematic with equity investments.
On simplicity
People confused “simplicity” with “ease”.
Buffett’s methodology was straightforward, and in that sense “simple”.
It was not simple in the sense of being easy to execute.
On Coffee Can Portfolio
The Coffee Can Portfolio: Robust returns with a low degree of uncertainty.
Most Read Last Week
Try out the popular essays and book summaries till the next edition of the newsletter.
Essays:
On Children by Kahlil Gibran – My interpretation of the meaning of Kahlil Gibran’s beautiful poem On Children from his book The Prophet.
How to Measure Your Sleep Health – An essay on self-assessing your sleep health.
Energy is the Currency of the Universe – An essay on the fact that your energy and attention creates your reality.
Book Summaries:
Freedom from the Known by J Krishnamurti – A book about freeing yourself from the past and the known.
Awareness: The Key to Living by Osho – An eye-opening book on the concepts of Thought, Words, Past, Present, Future, Meditation and most importantly Awareness.
The Manual for Living by Epictetus – A practical book on Stoic philosophy written by Epictetus, who was brought as a slave to Rome, and went on to become a great teacher, deeply influencing the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius.
What I’m Doing
What I’m doing now and what’s coming up next.
NOW
Reading 📖
The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel
Thinking 🤔
These mountains that you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb.
- Najwa Zebian
Writing ✍️
In addition to this edition of the letter:
Added one new book summary featured in this edition:
NEXT
A hint of what’s coming up in the next few editions.
Book Summary of Charting and Technical Analysis by Fred McAllen.
Book Summary of The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel.
Thank you for reading till the end!
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Until next week,
- Satyajit
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