I've got a bunch of good friends who are caring, supportive and fun to play with;

I've got parents who are always understanding;

I've got a brother who hits good tennis with me!

I've got God who never gives up on me!  Thank YOU all for teaching me what happiness is.

Have been trying to push myself to pause at some time and really listen to the voice, hahaha....in vain !

Damn it!  It takes courage and serious honesty!  Who, in these days, would surrender your sense of security (be it power and "face") to the steadfast truths and values on earth and in heavan?  It's tough!  Who would you be accountable to, only youself?  Who are you when NO one is watching???  Come on, face it you loser!  I buy Covey's teachings.  I love it!  Thanks Mark Lim, my eyes were opened by your influence.  Hahaha, it was bloody EIGHT years ago!  Who am I now?  What a joke.  But I haven't given up, just ON and OFF, and UPS and DOWNS.  Fuck it!  Fuck all frustrations....hahaha~~~~

 

I read this article in the morning:

 

Stephen R. Covey

May 1992

The secret life is the key to a quality life and that in turn is the key to a quality culture, products, and services. Once in New York City, I attended the Broadway play, The Secret Garden. The play was particularly poignant for me that evening because my mother had just died.

The Tony Award winning musical is the story of a young girl whose mother and father die of cholera in India as the play begins. She is sent to live with her uncle in a large British manor. The old house is filled with romantic spirits. As the restless girl explores the grounds of the estate, she discovers the entrance to the magical secret garden, a place where anything is possible.

When she first enters the garden, she finds that it appears to be dead, much like her cousin, a bedridden boy, and her uncle, still haunted by memories of his lovely wife who died giving birth to the boy. In harmony with natural laws and principles, the girl faithfully plants seeds and brings new life to the garden. As the roots are warmed and the garden cultivated, she brings about a dramatic transformation of her entire culture within one season.

In my many years of teaching and training, I have seen several such transformations brought about by proactive people who exercise principle-centered leadership and the Seven Habits in their secret, private, and public lives.

When I returned home to Salt Lake City the next day to speak at my mother's funeral, I referred to the Secret Garden, because for me and many others, my mother's home was a secret garden where we could escape and be nurtured by positive affirmation. In her eyes, all about us was good, and all that was good was possible.

Our Three Lives

We all live three lives: public, private, and secret. In our public lives, we are seen and heard by colleagues, associates, and others within our circle of influence. In our private lives, we interact more intimately with spouses, family members, and close friends. The secret life is where your heart is, where your real motives are the ultimate desires of your life.

Many executives never visit the secret life. Their public and private lives are essentially scripted by who and what precedes and surrounds them or by the pressures of the environment. And so they never exercise that unique endowment of self-awareness the key to the secret life where you can stand apart from yourself and observe your own involvement.

Courage is required to explore our secret life because we must first withdraw from the social mirror, where we are fed positive and negative feedback continuously. As we get used to this social feedback, it becomes a comfort zone. And we may opt to avoid self-examination and idle away our time in a vacuum of reverie and rationalization. In that frame of mind, we have little sense of identity, safety, or security.

Examine Your Motives

The most critical junctures in my life take place when I visit my secret life and ask, "What do I think? What do I believe is right? What should my motives be?" These are times when I choose my motives. One such time occurred when I first heard Dag Hammarskjold say, "It is more noble to give yourself completely to one individual, than to labor diligently for the salvation of the masses." That statement had such a profound effect on me that I started to say to myself in regard to my relationships with other people, "Wait a minute it's my life. I can choose whether I want to make reconciliation with this person or not. I can choose my own motives."

One of the exciting fruits of the "secret garden" is an ability to consciously choose your own motives. Until you choose your own motives, you really can't choose to live your own life. Everything flows out of motive and motivation that is the root of our deepest desires.

Now, when I get into a frustrating or perplexing situation, I enter into my secret life. That's where I find not only motives but also correct principles; that's where the inner wisdom is. As I learn to be proactive in exploring the secret life, I tap into self-awareness, imagination, conscience, and into the exercise of free will to choose another motive.

People who regularly explore their secret life and examine their motives are better able to see into the hearts of others, practice real empathy, bestow real empowerment and affirm worth and identity.

A healthy secret life will benefit your private and public lives in many ways. For example, when I'm preparing to give a speech, I read aloud a favorite discourse on faith, hope, and charity because it helps me to purify my motive. I lose all desire to impress. My only desire is to bless. And when I go to a public setting with that motive, I have great confidence and inner peace. I feel more love for the people and feel much more authentic myself.

Executives who attend our leadership training in the mountain setting of Sundance often tell me, "This is the first time in many years that I've done any soul searching. I've seen myself as if for the first time, and I've resolved that my life is going to be different. I'm going to be true to what I really believe." Recently, many people have written me to say, "Your habits and principles have made the difference. I'd never really thought about some of them before, but I resonate with them." That's because these principles are found in people's secret life.

And yet most of us spend our busy days privately doing our thing, never pausing long enough to enter the secret life, the secret garden, where we can create masterpieces, discover great truths and enhance very aspect of our public and private lives.

Having a healthy secret life is the key to having a quality private and public life, as well as a quality culture, product or service.

 

 

Pay the Full Price

Stephen R. Covey

October 1994

The principle of "paying the uttermost farthing" is to apologize when you make a mistake or fail to meet expectations and then to behave better.

An executive once told me: "My biggest worry and concern is my poor relationship with my most creative people at work and with my teenage son at home. In the past, I have lost my temper and yelled at them. How can I improve these relationships and change the image they have of me?"

There is no greater heartbreak for leaders than to feel they are losing or have lost influence with people they most want and need to lead. Fortunately, no situation is hopeless. There are several powerful ways to heal a broken relationship, to restore the emotional bank account, and to have positive influence again.

Consider carefully what was taught in the Sermon on the Mount: "Agree with thine adversary quickly, whilst thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing."

The Uttermost Farthing

People often get offended or they offend others and then neither party has the humility to take full responsibility for their part. Instead, they rationalize and justify themselves. A collusion then occurs as they look for evidence to support the perception of the other person, and that only aggravates the original problem. Ultimately, they put each other in a mental-emotional prison.

You can't come out of prison until you pay the uttermost farthing. The "uttermost farthing" means exactly that - the uttermost, not the first, second, or third. It means a humble and complete acknowledgment of your responsibility for the problem, even though the other was partly responsible as well. If you take full responsibility for your part in it and acknowledge it and apologize out of deep sincerity and concession of spirit the other person will sense the utter sincerity of what you say.

Of course, your behavior must then comport with that expression so that others can see your integrity. Paying the uttermost farthing requires behavior consistent with the apology over a period of time, because your emotional bank account with that person may be so overdrawn that no apology will redeem it.

You have to do much more. You have to show your sincerity. You can't talk yourself out of problems you behave yourself into particularly if you're constantly apologizing, but your behavior pattern and style remain unchanged.

If you pay only the first farthing, expecting other people to also acknowledge their part and their responsibility, that is insufficient. The other person may pay a farthing with the attitude, "Well, I'm sorry, but it's not all one way. You've been a party to this thing as well." But he won't pay a second farthing until you pay the uttermost farthing.

To pay the uttermost farthing, you might say, "I was wrong." "I embarrassed you in front of your friends." Or, "I cut you off in that meeting, when you had made this tremendous preparation. And I'm not only going to apologize to you, but also to the other people who were in that meeting because they could see the way I dealt with you, and it offended them as well."

You make no effort to justify, explain, defend, or blame in any way, only an effort to pay the uttermost farthing in order to get out of prison. What happens when you pay the full price? Assume, to begin with, that relationships are strained and that you are at least partly responsible. If you merely try to be better and not to confess and apologize, the other person will still be suspicious. He has been hurt and wounded; therefore, his guard is up. He will question your new behavior, your "kind face," and wonder what might happen next. Your improved behavior and manner won't assuage his distrust. Nothing you can do will change it, because you are behind bars and walls in a prison of his own making in his mind. The bars and walls are the mental and emotional labels that he has put upon you. Only by making a complete, and specific acknowledgment of your own failings or mistakes do you break down these bars.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

有個太太多年來不斷抱怨 對面的太太很懶惰， “那個女人的衣服永遠 洗不乾淨，看， 她晾在外院子裡的衣服， 總是有斑點， 我真的不知道， 她怎麼連洗衣服 都洗成那個樣子。” 直到有一天， 有個明察秋毫的朋友到她家， 才發現不是對面的太太衣服洗不乾淨。 細心的朋友拿了一塊抹布， 把這個太太的窗戶上的灰漬抹掉， 說：“看，這不就乾淨了嗎？” 原來，是自己家的窗戶髒了。 r♠yh♦n  280206

Vision gives you the impulse to make the picTure your own rayhon 230206