Lately I've kind of been on a non-fiction reading kick, which is different because I'm usually more of a fiction reader. The current book I'm reading is called "The 8th Habit" by Stephen Covey. Oddly enough, I found this book in a thrift store just a week or two before he died. Before reading this, you may also want to read "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" by the same author. Part of the assignment when reading this book is to teach what you learned to someone else. You readers of my blog get to be my students. Now some of the stuff is new, but quite a bit of it is stuff I sort of knew but didn't necessarily know how to put it into words. This book does that to some extent. It's no substitute for the Bible by any means, but so far I have found it very interesting.
It also seems very relevant to the current political atmosphere and sheds some very interesting light on the whole "You didn't build that" quote by the President that was in the news recently. It is evident why people object to what he said. Because by saying that, he is desecrating one of our greatest gifts: the freedom of choice.
So......here's what I've learned so far. These are some of the gems I've found. The regular text is from the book. The italics are my own additional spin on this.
"Most ailing organizations have developed a functional blindness to
their own defects. They are not suffering because they cannot resolve
their problems, but because they cannot see their problems." - John
Gardner
-Parallel to this, it also explains why we need God to help us show us our spiritual problems. Because we can't see them by ourselves. We need God to shift our paradigm.
"The problem is,
managers today are still applying the Industrial Age control model to
knowledge workers. Because many in positions of authority do not see
the true worth and potential of their people and do not possess a
complete, accurate understanding of human nature, they manage people as
they do things. This lack of understanding also prevents them from
tapping into the highest motivations, talents and genius of people.
What happens when you treat people like things today? It insults and
alienates them, depersonalizes work, and creates low-trust, unionized,
litigious cultures." - Stephen Covey
The
four intelligences of our nature: Physical Intelligence, Mental
Intelligence, Social/Emotional Intelligence, and Spiritual Intelligence.
"The point is,
if you neglect any of the four parts of human nature, you turn a person
into a thing, and what do you do with things? You have to control,
manage, and carrot-and-stick them in order to motivate them." - Stephen
Covey
"If
you were to ask what one ideal was most practical, most relevant, most
timely, regardless of circumstances, I would answer quickly, without any
reservation, and with the deepest conviction of my heart and soul, that
we are free to choose. Next to life itself, the power to choose is
your greatest gift." "The essence of being human is being able to
direct your own life." "The power of choice means that we are not merely
a product of our past or of our genes; we are not a product of how
other people treat us. They unquestionably influence is, but they do
not determine us. We are self-determining through our choices." -
Stephen Covey
This totally aligns with the Bible. God calls us, and it is up to us to choose whether we respond. This also gets at the root of why people didn't like the President's comment.
An
awarenes of our freedom and power to choose is afirming because it can
excite our sense of possibility and potential. It can also threaten,
even terrify, because suddenly we're responsible, that is,
re-sponse-able." - Stephen Covey
In the last six months, I've watched a friend go through some of this fear that comes with the freedom to choose, so this was particularly clear and interesting to me.
Between stimulus and response there is a space.
In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response.
In those choices lie our growth and our happiness.
A couple nice poems related to the power of choice:
"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."
-Robert Frost
One ship drives east and another drives west
With the self same winds that blow.
'Tis the set of the sails,
And not the gales,
That tells us the way to go.
Like the winds of the sea are the ways of fate;
As we voyage along through life,
'Tis the set of a soul
That decides its goal,
And not the calm, or the strife.
-Ella Wheeler Wilcox
The book spends time covering natural laws or principles. This is a pretty easy concept if you're one who reads the Bible. For example, the "Law of the Harvest" is a natural law. You reap what you sow.
"Spiritual
Intelligence is the central and most fundamental of all the
intelligences because it becomes the source of guidance for the other
three." - Stephen Covey
1. For the body - assume you've had a heart attack; now live accordingly
2. For the mind - assume the half-life of your profession is two years; now prepare accordingly
3. For the heart - assume everything you say about another, they can overhear; now speak accordingly
4. For the spirit - assume you have a one-on-one visit with your Creator every quarter; now live accordingly
For the spirit, I would say: assume you have a one-on-one visit with your Creator every morning and every evening; now live accordingly. And we can be thankful the Creator helps us live accordingly.
Retire
from your job but never from meaningful projects. If you want to die
early, retire to golf and fishing and sit around swallowing
prescriptions and occasionally seeing your grandkids.
Determinism is deeply imbedded into present-day
culture and is reinforced by the terrifying sense that if I do have
choice, then I am also responsible for my present situation. Until a
person can honestly say "I am what I am" and "I am where I am because I
so choose to be there," that person cannot say with conviction, "I
choose otherwise."
To me, this is the danger of so many entitlements in our society. The entitlements send a subliminal message to people that they are not responsible and do not have the power to choose otherwise, so they must rely on the government to choose for them.
OK, that's enough of the soapbox for today. Join me next month as we discuss Vision, Discipline, Passion, and Conscience.
