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Time and How to Spend It: The 7 Rules for Richer, Happier Days by James Wallman (view source)
Revision as of 19:52, 1 April 2019
, 19:52, 1 April 2019no edit summary
Most things you can replace, but one of the things which you simply can't replace is time. Even though we know this, we fail to use what we have wisely. We have more leisure time, but that's not how it feels: a high value is put on how we spend our working hours, but there's a low value on leisure. Unfortunately we now know how to work and not how to ''live'': we need to ''learn'' how to spend our leisure time wisely and James Wallman has taken on the onerous task of teaching us how to do this.
Historically people have looked to acquire material possessions as they can progress through life. I can understand this : they're tangible and if bought carefully will stand the test of time whereas experiences leave you with (as my father would have said) 'nowt to show for it'. It seems almost counter intuitive to say that rather than looking to accumulate material possessions we should looking to acquire experiences if we want to have a successful life. Wallman explores the relationship between experience, resilience and success as well as experience, happiness and success. Societies are now more interested in well being than wealth so the pursuit of experiences makes sense.
But will just any experience do? No - they have to be selected carefully and wallman gives us an acronym, a seven-point checklist, to use when we select our experiences. It's ''STORIES''. Experiences need to create a story, be transformative, outside and offline, create relationships, have intensity, be extraordinary (and ordinary) and give status and significance. Wallman examines each one in detail, with insights from psychology, economics and culture. Don't worry if that sounds rather worthy - there was nothing which I failed to understand on a first reading and Wallman delivers his knowledge with a light touch and a dry sense of humour.