The things that we consider to be valuable are often the things we can measure. If something is not measurable we may dismiss it, when in fact it could be valuable beyond all measure. It is easy to measure household budgets, our time, salary or the things that we own. It is far harder to measure the state of our relationships, the happiness of our children or the condition of a marriage.
This will hopefully be a valuable discussion. If you can't make it to the group and you are reading the book at home, please feel free to add a comment on this blog.
To watch a video introducing the second chapter of the book on the Lichfield Anglican Website.
Not everything that counts can be counted! This has struck a chord with me this week. I attended a talk for work, by a "futurist", a social scientist who makes predictions about the future. In an effort to make the group think like futurists, he got us to explore an issue, in this case, what the world of work would look like in the West Midlands in two to five years' time. We had to consider the issue in terms of technology, infrastructure, demographics, the environment, and social values. He had various hints on how we should approach the task, and a key one for me was "be careful when you are measuring something, because when you measure, you narrow your focus". He asked us to take a step back and think hard about what aspects we might be missing when we measure. The resulting discussion was much richer and much more thought provoking than I could have imagined.
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