How many on their deathbeds wished they'd spent more time at the office - or watching TV? The answer is, No one.
Stephen CoveyRead
My behavior is a product of my own conscious choices based on principles, rather than a product of my conditions, based on feelings.
Interpretation
Our actions stem from deliberate choices informed by principles instead of being reactive to our circumstances or emotions.
In this quote, Stephen Covey emphasizes the importance of personal responsibility and conscious decision-making. He asserts that true behavior is not merely a result of external conditions or fleeting feelings, but rather stems from a deep understanding of one's principles and values, urging individuals to take charge of their actions and reactions in life.
In practice
During a leadership workshop to inspire self-awareness among participants.
How many on their deathbeds wished they'd spent more time at the office - or watching TV? The answer is, No one.
If you want to have a more pleasant, cooperative teenager, be a more understanding, empathic, consistent, loving parent. If you want to have more freedom, more latitude in your job, be a more responsible, a more helpful, a more contributing employee.
Listen with your eyes for feelings.
If we live out of our memory, we're tied to the past and to that which is finite. When we live out of our imagination, _x000D_ we're tied to that which is infinite.
Synergy is the highest activity of life; it creates new untapped alternatives; it values and exploits the mental, emotional, and psychological differences between people.
Keep in mind that you are always saying "no" to something. If it isn't to the apparent and urgent things in your life, it is probably to the most fundamental, highly important things.
You're no help," he told the lime. This was unfair. It was only a lime; there was nothing special about it at all. It was doing the best it could.
It is only doubt that creates.
Hot things, sharp things, sweet things, cold things All rot the teeth, and make them look like old things.
To one degree or another we all struggle with selfishness. Since it is so common, why worry about selfishness anyway? Because selfishness is really self-destruction in slow motion. No wonder the Prophet Joseph Smith urged, "Let every selfish feeling be not only buried, but annihilated" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 178). Hence annihilation - not moderation - is the destination! . . . Meekness is the real cure, for it does not merely mask selfishness but dissolves it!
The first real terror struck him then, and there was nothing supernatural about it. It was only a realization of how easy it was to trash your life. That was what was so scary. You just dragged the fan up to everything you had spent the years raking together and turned the motherfucker on.
There are not many persons who know what wonders are opened to them in the stories and visions of their youth; for when as children we listen and dream, we think but half-formed thoughts, and when as men we try to remember, we are dulled and prosaic with the poison of life.
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