Quote on Thursday

"Basing our happiness on our ability to control everything is futile."

Stephen Covey

When looking at my bookshelves, one can find a section of books about time management, theories about happiness, advice on how to live and the sort. I enjoy some of them, dislike most of them as they usually try to tell the reader a simple recipe to follow and then everything will fall in place and the reader will turn into the happiest, wealthiest, most popular, successful and healthy chap on the block. Yeah - life is that simple, right? The first book I have ever read of this type (a very American thing) was "fit for life" but it did not solve any of my problems. Anyway, once in a while there is a really good book though. 2 years ago I was giving a talk and workshop on finding your true passion and learning who you really are. One of the books I used in my preparation was Stephen Covey's "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change" and I was surprised how much I liked it and the approach that was so easily transferred to the different aspects of life.

So why did I pick this quote? Because lately it feels like I have so little control over things and it is driving me a little nuts. I do not like to live my life reactive, but sometimes we have to and this quote reminds me not make my happiness dependent on how much I can control. On the other hand there are areas we can attempt to control and I have been bad at my time management. One major reason being that my brain is not working as properly as it used to. I used to never forget anything and calendars where a cute accessory, not a necessity. Lately I have forgotten some important appointments - today I forgot to pick up my friends son from preschool and that is awful.

I have been a bit defiant about really putting a good time management system to work for me and today I finally succumb to it. I will not rely on my brain powers alone, there is something to be said for a place to write down everything. I tried Filofax for a while and it never worked, there was not enough freedom for me and enough space to write a lot. I tried Apple's iCal and though it is not bad, it is not enough and it stays on my computer - it could come with me if I had an iPhone, but I refuse to pay for those ridiculous monthly fees at AT&T. I like Covey's system, but there are no designs I like in the size I like. The big size is boring looking for business men and the cool looking pages are for women and their tiny purses - hello, that is not me! Can a woman not have a big planner? So I have decided to make my own system with Levenger, that way I can design it myself and make it suit my weired life.

Here is to my hope of managing time, anticipating curve balls and accepting that there is not much in life I can truly control! With the quote chosen, I could have written a multitude of blog entries, like how children do not behave the way we envision they should, how our neighbors might not vote the way we like, how other people cut us off or ... The topic does not matter, as long as we can see that happiness resides inside of ourselves and not in controlling external issues.