Sunday, January 22, 2006

Habits

Stephen Covey says that private victory has to precede public victory. One has to be first disciplined and principled before he starts to expect this from others. Something that we may all know, but when he says it, it comes out so nicely. He has a lot of nice observations in this book "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" - he says that we can't get away from the problems we behave ourselves into. Self mastery and self discipline are the foundation of good relationship with others. Then I wonder, is it entirely possible to have good relationships with others if others don't think the same way? What applies to you applies to them as well!

One other profound statement he makes:

"If you don't know yourself, if you don't control yourself, if you don't have mastery over yourself, it's very hard to like yourself, except in some short term, psych-up, superficial way".

Obviously he is quite an experienced man and is regarded by many as a great motivational speaker. Still, the book will talk to you only when you want it to. In other words, the gate of change is within us and it is us who has the power to open it. Others can't do it for us. Only you can eat for your hunger - others can't. One other great quote I got from this book:

"There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity".

It does take so much to trust others - for that you have to trust yourself. You'll very much reflect how your mind thinks. A person who is politically motivated will only see others as doing politics. He won't see and appreciate the good in them objectively. Similarly, a person who doesn't trust others very much thinks that the others don't trust him either. A person who is cunning and crafty sees the same in others. How indispensable trust is, for a relationship! In essence, it is all just giving a slight benefit of doubt to the other person - "Oh, he may not have meant this to be like this" or "I know him, only circumstances would have forced him to do a thing like this, he wouldn't mean anything bad for me". All it takes is such good thoughts. It highly comforts the other person. It might be great for him/her to feel forgiven.

Coming back to habits - Covey claims that habits can be learned and unlearned. One may argue about this. This may be true in the extreme case, but I really wonder how this can be practically implemented. One has to be so disciplined to get there and learn new habits. Or be extremely patient. Take up piano playing for instance - by now I am convinced that if you learn it at childhood, there's nothing like it, as opposed to trying to pick it up at the age of 25. This may have to do with our physical nature which evolves over time, as much as our mental state. We may have firmly ingrained habits by that age. How do we go about changing it. You may play the piano everyday, but still not learn the habit of picking up tunes by the ear and playing them without mistake the first time itself. To achieve this will require awareness and consciousness everytime you press a key on the piano. Your mind has to learn to recognize the note for what it is everytime it is played. Slowly internalize it over a period of time and do it consistently. This surely requires a lot of dedication, but that's what it takes to form a new habit and that's what habit is, by definition. It is something that you do subconsciously, only this time you are making sure that it is a good thing.

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