37days: Change yardsticks
I feel like I want to be a Buddhist when I read this recent post from the fabulous Patti Digh’s blog, 37 Days. Here is a little extract:
“
E.M. Schumacher has written about “Buddhist Economics”: “While the materialist is mainly interested in goods, the Buddhist is mainly interested in liberation…It is not wealth that stands in the way of liberation, but the attachment to wealth; not the enjoyment of pleasurable things, but the craving for them.”
The modern economist, Schumacher continues, “is used to measuring the ‘standard of living’ by the amount of annual consumption, assuming…that a man who consumes more is ‘better off’ than a man who consumes less. A Buddhist economist would consider this approach excessively irrational: since consumption is merely a means to human well-being, the aim should be to obtain the maximum of well-being with the minimum of consumption.”
“
She is an amazing writer. Read this post and don’t forget to read the challenge at the end, that’s always my favourite bit. I’m off to see how interesting I look!