From Robert P Seawright at Above the Market: It is remarkable how many of the problems we face in investing, financial planning and in life generally are attributable to our willingness, eagerness even, to think we have "got a good reason for taking the easy way out". We pick what is easy, what is expedient, what pleases right now rather than what is best overall and for the long term. There are excellent bits of instruction available all around us, of course, that suggest — implore even — that we do things differently. It is simple common sense. There is Mr Micawber’s famous, and oft-quoted, recipe for happiness from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens: "Annual income 20 pounds, annual expenditure 19 [pounds] 19 [shillings] and six [pence], result happiness. Annual income 20 pounds, annual expenditure 20 pounds ought and six, result misery." There is Blaise Pascal’s proclamation, a claim with solid empirical support: "All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit qui...
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