It's such a loaded question. Look at it, sitting up there all by itself. Just four words, isn't it? Simple enough meaning, when you think about it.
I bet you can't answer it. I bet you read that question and your stomach did a little flip because you have no idea what you want.
Welcome to the club, my friends. Neither do I.
If you've ever hung out with me for more then a few minutes, you'll have noticed: Indecisiveness is my middle name. I went to Kinsolving today and seriously stood there with a plate full of food in my hand for fifteen minutes trying to decide whether I was going to sit in a booth or at a table. I thought the person I was with was going to strangle me and stuff me in the rotating dish thing you put your plate in after eating.
Booth or table??????
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However, tonight I received some very good news that you all may be pleased to hear as well. COVEY KNOWS HOW TO HELP YOU FIGURE OUT WHAT YOU WANT !
I was seriously excited after I finished reading. The answer was staring me right in the face all these years. All I need to do is achieve independence. I need to learn to “act instead of being acted upon” (Covey, 50). I need to stop basing my decisions on other people. Not going to lie: half the reason it took me so long to decide where to sit was because I was trying to figure out where the person I was with wanted to sit.
I'm a bit of a people pleaser: I like to make people happy. But what Covey is trying to get at with the first 3 of his 7 Habits is that you can't base your happiness off of other people. You have to figure out what YOU want, and what makes YOU happy, not how you can give other people what they want so that they can make you happy.
Sadly, the realization that I still have not achieved independence means that I have not progressed past the first 3 of Covey's habits, which is a little embarassing because... I am old. Quite old, in fact. Or at least too old to still be basing my decisions off of other people. That's not to say that I always base my decisions off of others. But it happens enough that when I read Covey's ideas about dependence, I thought sheepishly of myself.
However, there are other areas in Covey's philosophy where I'm a bit farther along. I love his ideas about using both sides of the brain, and I think that it's is something I've always been attune to. Probably too attune to, actually. In elementary school I like... couldn't separate them or something.
I remember there was this one time in... 2nd grade maybe? Anyway, we were working on word problems in math and I came to a problem about a dalmation. I think it was asking me to figure out how many feet he had traveled. I started to count on my fingers, and write tally marks, and then... it struck me. Where was the puppy going? Why was he going there? Was he cold? Was he lonely? He needed company, of course! By the end of math I had concocted this elaborate story for the puppy, complete with a drawing of him with his friends the duck, the cat, and the elephant.
The puppy with one of his many friends.
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OH...it was 2nd grade. I know because in 2nd grade we had these pins we would move across the board every time we did something wrong and I definitely had to move mine that day. I guess the point of that math assignment was not to integrate both sides of the brain...
Covey also talks about different types of intelligences. I love his idea that a “whole person” is “four dimensional- [consisting of] body, mind, heart, and spirit”. I personally have different levels of intelligence for each of these. The ones I'm behind on hold me back though. Covey points out that these are al connected, that laboratory studies have shown a relationship “between body (physical), mind (thinking) and heart (feeling)” (Anthology 232) and that “spiritual intelligence is the most central and fundamental of all because is becomes the source of guidance of the other three” (Anthology, 233). Therefore, I'm only as intelligent as dimension of myself I'm least intelligent in, since they all affect each other.
Covey has really interesting ideas about time management as well. When we first read this section at the beginning of the semester, what struck me was that he wasn't necessarily talking about a planner full of dates and appointments and stressful things you needed to finish by a certain time. Covey wanted you to make time for the things that were truly important and he wanted you to use not what the world told you was important but what you, because of your values, placed importance on. He advocates “[managing] our lives effectively- from the center of sounds principles, from a knowledge of our personal mission, [and] with focus on the important as well as the urgent” (Covey, 160). I love this. I get so tired of spending time on things I'm not really that passionate about, and this idea that I also need to make time for the things that matter most, that these are just as important as the things that society says are urgent, is novel.
But in a way, the idea of managing time so that things that are truly important to us have a place in our schedule brings me back to the first question I posed.
What do I want?
I want:
To be happy
For other people to be happy
To stop thinking about doing things and go out and actually do them.
Be Happy!
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