What You Are Paying For
and how to stop
Free to read, in full, here. Eleven short chapters, about an hour and a half altogether. The paperback, the hardcover and the Kindle edition are still for sale, and the Books page has the links; nothing in them is missing from here.
You are not scattered because you are weak or badly organised. You are paying for forty things you are not using: a conversation left open, a decision deferred to Thursday, an argument still being rehearsed in the car. None of them is large. All of them are live, and each one takes a little every day whether you touch it or not.
The book turns on one sentence. Closing an account is not the same as finishing it. A closed account is not a solved problem — it is a problem that is no longer billing you, and that is something you can do tonight about a thing you will not finish this year.
It is the argument of The Inward Singularity made a second time, for a reader who would put a book down at the word entropy. Not an edition of that book: a different one, with none of its vocabulary, written in the language of an ordinary bank account. The glossary at the back translates between the two, line by line.
Nothing in it takes more than ten minutes, and the last chapter asks for nothing at all.
Before the first chapter
- Before you beginThis book uses one picture the whole way through: an account, and what is being charged to it. There is another book underneath this one.
- What this book is aboutThere are two usual explanations for why you are tired, and this book accepts neither. The first says you lack discipline.
- Why you feel scatteredYou sat down at nine this morning and it is now half past four, and if somebody asked what you did today you would struggle to name three things.
- Whose account it isEverything in the last chapter was charged to one account. Forty standing orders, the open conversations, the decision deferred to Thursday — all of it drawn…
- The charge, and the interestYou hit a pothole on the way to work. The car jolts, the coffee goes over your hand, and you say something.
- Closing is not finishingSarah founded a company and is tired in a way that sleep does not touch. Her response, every time, is to add something. A productivity app. A supplement.
- The bill you did not expect, and the one you cannot cancelTrouble arrives in two shapes, and almost everybody treats them the same way. Some of it has already been charged. The remark in the meeting.
- Which charges are realForty lines on a statement, and you are looking for the two that matter. That is the day. Not a flood of work — a flood of lines: messages, requests,…
- What you draw on, and what keeps no accountThere is a moment, just before you press the button, when it is still yours. The proposal is written and not sent.
- What the money was forYou have been reading a book about accounts for seven chapters, and it was never about money. Every charge in it is settled in the same currency, and it is…
- One account, properly fundedTake the butter you have and spread it over one slice of bread. Now spread the same butter over four.
- Clearing the registerEverything in the first nine chapters can be understood in an afternoon and lost by the following Tuesday.
- Nothing outstandingIt is a Tuesday evening and nothing is running. Not nothing happening — plenty happened. Two things went wrong, one of them badly, and somebody said…
At the back
- GlossaryThis book and The Inward Singularity describe the same thing in two languages. That one borrows from physics; this one uses an account and what is charged to…
- Words from the traditionFour words in this book are not the author's pictures. They belong to Raja Yoga as taught by the Brahma Kumaris, and they are used here with their own…
- The eight powersYou will have noticed that this book never gives you a table of eight and asks you to learn it. That is deliberate.
- The seven, from chapter 7Named here only so they can be found again: purity, peace, love, joy, bliss, power, knowledge. They are not stages and not a ranking.
- The other booksThe Inward Singularity — Become the Prime Mover in a High-Entropy Universe\ This argument in the language of physics instead of money: the same eight powers,…
- Where this came fromThe practice underneath this book is Raja Yoga as taught by the Brahma Kumaris, followed by the author for more than ten years.
Questions
- What is What You Are Paying For about?
You are not scattered because you are weak or badly organised. You are paying for forty things you are not using: a conversation left open, a decision deferred to Thursday, an argument still being rehearsed in the car. None of them is large, all of them are live, and each takes a little every day whether you touch it or not.
- What is the one sentence the book turns on?
Closing an account is not the same as finishing it. A closed account is not a solved problem — it is a problem that is no longer billing you. That distinction is what makes it something you can act on tonight about a thing you will not finish this year.
- How is it related to The Inward Singularity?
It is the same argument made a second time, for a reader who would put a book down at the word entropy. It is not an edition of that book but a different one, with none of its vocabulary, written in the language of an ordinary bank account. A glossary at the back translates between the two, line by line.
- How much time does it ask for?
Eleven short chapters, about an hour and a half altogether. Nothing in it takes more than ten minutes, and the last chapter asks for nothing at all.
- Is What You Are Paying For free, or do I have to buy it?
Both are available. It is free to read in full here, and the paperback, hardcover and Kindle editions are still for sale with links on the Books page. Nothing in the paid editions is missing from this one.