The 168 Hour Work Week

Like millions of others, I have lapped up "The Four Hour Work Week" by Tim Ferriss. 

Make no mistake, this book is an enlightening, provocative and gripping read. Tim's advocacy of "lifestyle design" and "mini-retirements" is stimulating and controversial, even if the author's litany of adventures in Buenos Aires and Berlin seem to resemble fairly harmless gap-year jaunts. Some parts of the book are simply brilliant. While I have applied the Pareto principle for years (and used the function on Minitab),this author's elegant rendition of 80/20 and timeboxing is sublime in its brevity. I would recommend TFHWW as anabolic steroids for the entrepreneurial muscles.

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/

That said, the title almost put me off. It seemed a very turn-of-the-century concept, certainly before the great fear of unemployment stalked the world. People are normally miserable when they are fired, and for a reason. Work - defined as genuinely productive achievement - is in my view the highest fulfilment of what it means to be human. Work is an act of creation and of bringing order to the universe, one of the most joyous and intrinsically powerful secrets of life. 

Work changes you deeply on the inside, developing your potential and providing lifelong growth. We need to reclaim the concept of "work" from those who would identify it with Dilbert-style cubicles and soulless, mechanical drudge. Don't forget also the social validation and rapport that work can provide, which is deeper and more durable than a series of endless holidays and disconnected experiences. Work is no legalised slavery. Work is the liberator.

St.Paul's Cathedral in London is that rarest thing, a true masterpiece. Sir Christopher Wren, the architect,is commemorated by a simple, famous inscription - "Lector, si momumentum requiris, circumspice". Reader, if you seek a monument, look around. 

Three hundred years later, we still do. Work is the true secret of immortality.

(c) WestOcean 2009