A trip to Cambridge (for an early orientation as we embark on the great university search for son and heir) made me ponder the immeasurable benefits of a long-term perspective.

The university dates back nearly 800 years. Cambridge city on a sunny Saturday bustles and buzzes with tourists, but inside their ancient walls each college is an oasis of calm contemplation and learning. Many of its colleges are renowned not just for their architecture, but for their libraries and wine cellars too; two collections best built if you measure time in generations rather than quarters.

London’s Inns of Court (around 600 years old) share a similar air and equally enviable cellars. There are a handful of venerable family firms around the world that enjoy the same perspective, seeking perhaps to nurture and grow, rather than to grow and milk. And, strangely, maybe Amazon will turn out to be another, with its relentless focus on the long-term.

In a recent Times column, the writer and broadcaster Libby Purves wrote about the challenge but wisdom of simple saving. Interest rates at a miserable 1% and inflation at 2.3% can feel like added justification to spend: money saved will shrink not grow. And yet, while saving may make you nothing, borrowing will still cost you more. And, it’s uncertain: you can’t know that funds will be available when you need them most. As Purves writes:

“even a hundred quid stashed away is a happy thing, an undervalued source of mental stability. You feel you could meet a crisis, whether your own or a friend’s. You can make choices.”

Again, a long term perspective.

Allied to this, of course, is the magic of compound interest – Einstein’s “most powerful force in the universe” – as related by Michael Batnick via Steve Layman, here.

Trinity Hall, Cambridge

Queen’s College, Cambridge