None of this is to say the people surrounding Buffett and Munger necessarily share their hyper-rationality. The city of Omaha has its own little quirks. There's a main street called West Dodge, signs to which point to West Dodge West and West Dodge East. For a reason unknown to me, Omaha has a Mexican Consulate. Out of all this, though, one comment from Charlie Munger took my breath away.
Life is more than being shrewd in passive wealth accumulation.
Munger, for his part, has made charitable donations in the millions of dollars to institutions that are important to him, including the Los Angeles Public Library System, Good Samaritan Hospital, and several schools. He also came up with Berkshire Hathaway's unique shareholder-designated charity, through which each owner of Berkshire Class A stock has the annual opportunity to select the charity to which Berkshire will donate on his or her behalf. Here we were, at a meeting for which some people had traveled several thousand miles to hear the investing and business wisdom of Warren Buffett, and Munger reminds us that much of our energy should be dedicated elsewhere. That the comment came from someone whose life success has ostensibly been defined by the very activity of buying pieces of paper is noteworthy. If someone who has reached the height of success in investing can keep from being defined by these actions, it should tell us mere investing mortals that much of the time we spend concentrating on investing is really time wasted.