“All a man needs is a library and a garden”
Cicero, Roman Philosopher, senator and writer of fridge magnets, which is how I know this quote.
Two things to note here. One, there’s no mention of a wife, and two, its becoming increasingly apparent, having written several blogs/emails now, that I’ve a penchant for quoting others.
In my last email I wrote a little about Innovation and ambition. There’s a flip side to that kind of thinking too of course. Allow me to paraphrase a story I once heard;
A dude in a suit was walking along the beach one afternoon when he saw a fisherman snoozing nearby.
“Excuse me, is that your boat?”.
“Yeah man” he answered.
“Are there many fish out there”.
“Yes, many”.
“Then why aren’t you out fishing?” asked the suit.
“Was already out this morning and have offloaded all my catch” said the relaxing Fisherman.
“But, my friend, there’s still plenty of daylight left. You could go out again and catch twice as much”.
“Why would I do that?”
“So you’d earn more money”.
“And?”
“You could save, buy a second boat, expand..”
“And?”
“Then you could eventually sell the business and retire”.
“Hmm” came the reply. “Then what would I do?”
“Then you could afford to chill out and relax”.
“But that’s what I’m already doing now man!”
I’m not writing any morals to the story. Each to his own. We’re all different and that’s what makes the world go around. I’m still going to keep sending these emails though. We’ve more than enough in common to continue sharing experiences and I love the bit of feedback.
For now though I’ve a wife, 2 kids, and a just-delivered house special curry with fried rice to attend to!
The library and garden can wait.