The Wisdom of Doing Less

What if the problem isn't the work, but the argument you're having with it?

Maya Okafor is twenty-eight, promoted, praised, and running on empty. One Tuesday she forgets a colleague's name in the middle of a meeting. A week later she is driving to a frozen-over lake to find a retired airline executive who now restores wooden boats and rereads two very old books.

Over twelve Thursday nights, Anselm Hale and Maya argue about control, ambition, money, comparison, rest, and the one small word she has never learned to say. He draws on the Stoics and the Taoists. She has a mortgage, a mother to look after, and a talent for finding the weak point in any argument.

By the time the ice goes out, each of them will have to face the question neither can dodge: what would it mean to have enough?

Inside this book:

• A warm, funny, character-driven story told as twelve conversations


• Ideas from Epictetus, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Laozi, and Zhuangzi, made practical


• A Practice Guide with twelve small exercises you can try yourself


• Six fill-in worksheets, including the Three Columns and the Floor and the Ceiling


• A Reader's Guide with 23 questions for book clubs

For anyone who is tired in a way sleep has not fixed.