📚 Roger's Highlights

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A batch of the best highlights from what roger's read, .

In my experience, high-achievers focus a great deal on becoming the person they want to be at work—and far too little on the person they want to be at home.

How Will You Measure Your Life?

Clayton M. Christensen, James Allworth, and Karen Dillon

Noting that both Senator McCain and I had publicly pledged not to play politics with the financial rescue effort, I told the president that Democrats would deliver their share of the votes needed for passage. But I warned that if there was any truth to reports that some Republican leaders were backing away and insisting on starting from scratch with a whole new plan, it would inevitably bog down negotiations, and “the consequences would be severe.” Bush turned to McCain and said, “John, since Barack had a chance to speak, I think it’s only fair if I let you go next.” Everyone looked at McCain, whose jaw tightened. He appeared to be on the verge of saying something, thought better of it, and briefly fidgeted in his chair. “I think I’ll just wait for my turn,” he said finally. There are moments in an election battle, as in life, when all the possible pathways save one are suddenly closed; when what felt like a wide distribution of probable outcomes narrows to the inevitable. This was one of those moments. Bush looked at McCain with a raised eyebrow, shrugged, and called on John Boehner.

A Promised Land

Barack Obama

What happened next illustrated how much American society and values had changed. Seven months after 2,800 Americans were killed at Pearl Harbor in 1941, Adm. Chester Nimitz sailed west to Midway Island, where his carrier destroyed the Japanese fleet and changed the course of the war. Now imagine if Nimitz, when he reached the International Dateline, had decided to turn back, thereby granting the Japanese a sanctuary in the Western Pacific. Such a decision would have been preposterous. Sixty years later, nearly three thousand Americans were murdered in New York City. A few months later, the American military was poised to destroy Osama bin Laden’s force. The al Qaeda Arabs were running for their lives in sneakers, unprepared for the harsh winter, while the local Pashtun tribes were in deathly fear of the enraged juggernaut in pursuit. Fearful of America’s wrath, the Pakistani army was scrambling to distance itself from the Islamist fighters. But when al Qaeda crossed the Durand Line—a scratch on a map ignored by all the local tribes—into Pakistan, the U.S. military, the U.S. Congress, the U.S. president, and the U.S. press stopped as if shocked by an electric current. There was never a serious policy discussion about pursuing and destroying the enemy. By halting on a ridge in the middle of nowhere, we legitimized Pakistan as a sanctuary. Encouraged by our fastidiousness, the Pakistani army regained its confidence and issued dire warnings that the border was inviolate to American ground attack. At the same time, the Pashtun border tribes, due to intimidation, Islamic solidarity, and blood ties, acceded to Taliban rule. Since 2001, Pakistan has played both sides, sheltering Taliban and terrorists while permitting American strikes by unmanned aircraft and accepting American aid. Obsessed with India, the Pakistani army deployed most of its forces along its eastern border and supported terrorist groups in Kashmir. A popular saying was “Every country has an army; in Pakistan, the army has a country.” Inside the army, though, officers were wary of each other’s loyalties. Having encouraged Islamism in the 1980s to divide civilian political parties, the generals weren’t certain which fellow officers rendered loyalty to Islamic parties above loyalty to the army. U.S. aid subsidized the ruling elite in Islamabad. Since 2001, the United States has given Pakistan over $15 billion.2 With only 2 percent of the 170 million people paying income tax, the national budget is sustained by sales taxes that levy the same burden on street sweepers as on members of Parliament whose incomes reportedly average $900,000 a year.3 The goal of U.S. aid was to persuade Pakistan to take seriously the threat from the Islamists it protected, including al Qaeda. But the Pakistani army had proved both unable and unwilling to control the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, or FATA, along the Afghan border. It remained a sanctuary, sheltering over 150 insurgent camps.

The Wrong War

Bing West

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