WOW, does anyone understand the US elections?

Thanks to the beauty of cable/satellite, we have CNN International news (live) here on the beautiful coast of Spain. As a person very close to me would have said… “They’re playing fast and loose with the word ‘International’ here! Almost all of the news is hijacked by the US elections and no matter how much I hear, I’ll be honest – I do not understand what is going on! Ok, so they’ve had some corcusses, and some primaries and now they’re waiting for the delegates and ‘superdelegates’ to decide on who they will support into a new election? The American electoral system is so complicated you really have to ask yourself how Bush ever ‘won’ an election?!

Well with things closer to home, I’ve started to settle in here in Spain. For a nice change I’ve been able to indulge in some of the things I enjoy. Sleeping in late, plenty of running and even some reading. I realise that those who have known me for long enough would never list reading as one of my hobbies and they’d be right. I haven’t read a fiction book in many years but that’s not to say that I don’t enjoy reading. Every now and again I extend myself out of the comfort zone and cannibalise a good book. Most recently, after thinking I was not going to be able to get hold of it, I ploughed through Timothy Ferris’s long awaited “Four hour work week”. It was actually pretty good; if you like that sort of thing. To summarise:

Understand that we work to live, not live to work => Free yourself to consider that instead of working your life away until you are old and ‘past your best’ you could take a number of mini-retirements => Make yourself a small autonomous business that you ‘own’ and don’t ‘run’ (or get your boss to let you work remotely => Use Pareto analysis (80/20) to rid yourself of the crap from your life (useless phone calls, emails, meetings etc) =>Travel and enjoy life whilst still making money.

The principle is pretty simple and it does actually contain some pretty radical concepts, some of which I like a lot. Already I have resolved to try and cut out the useless communications and chaff from life and spend that time currency on things I actually want to do. Favourite quote from the book? “business is a form of laziness”. It says more about my life so far than I ever could. I really think that that paragraph alone taught me so much. Almost finished “The Automatic Millionaire” (David Bach) although I have to be honest, although there doesn’t seem to be anything radical in it, it does provide some sobering thoughts about compound interest and it’s effects. My recommendation? – If you are young, or responsible for someone young, read it. If you’re old like me it’s just depressing.