The Timeless Lesson from a Book Well-loved
The Life-changing Blessing of “I Choose To Be Proactive”
Dear brothers and sisters,
Namaste.
Welcome to my essay.
May God bless you and your loved ones with happiness every day.
Introduction
I happily confess that I am a bookworm.
I just love to re-read the books I love.
One such book is the classic of self-development literature, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” authored by Dr Stephen Covey.
In recent weeks, I have been going through this outstanding book and just finished its re-reading.
So, allow me to gladly highlight one of the most profound concepts I learnt here.
That is the concept of “proactivity.”
I find it to be so enormously useful in leading my life…!!
The Profound Concept of Proactivity
I have learnt five great things from Dr Covey: -
1. Our fundamental habit as a highly effective person in life is the habit of “proactivity.”
2. Such “Proactivity” means, as human beings, we are responsible (“response + able”) for our lives.
It straightaway implies we have the “ability” to choose our deliberate response to any given situation based on our deep-seated “principles of life.”
3. Thus, as a proactive person, we will assert, “I choose to follow this path in life.”
On the other hand, as a reactive person, we will claim, “I have to follow this path in life.”
4. Proactivity further means that, as human beings, our basic nature is “TO ACT” and not be acted upon.
As a result, we can CHOOSE our response to a particular circumstance in our lives.
5. As a proactive person, therefore, we can choose to live life “INSIDE OUT” — we can choose to focus on our inner CHARACTER— we can choose to make an improvement within ourselves when called for.
Sooner or later, our outer circumstances will also begin to undergo improvement, in tandem.
Its Life-changing Impact
I find this whole concept to be so empowering…!!
I invite each of you to read the book to get the full nuance of what I am talking about.
Because, then, IRRESPECTIVE of the less-than-ideal behaviour of the people around us (family, boss, colleagues, friends, neighbours etc.)…
…we can still CHOOSE…
…we can CHOOSE to live a principle-centred life…
…we can CHOOSE to stay focused on our dreams…
…we can thereby CHOOSE to continue in our chosen path in life.
In other words, our character’s foundation of proactivity then blesses us to become “Masters of Ourselves” and continue to be so each moment in life.
To me, it is so…so…so liberating as a means of living a worthy life!!
Hope this knowledge-capsule was useful to you.
In the end, I warmly thank you for reading my essay.
