The 8th Habit - Hmmm...

So I picked up Stephen Covey's book, The 8th Habit, and started to have a look at it. I vaguely remember reading the 7 habits book from many years ago, but I was less impressed than everyone else on the planet.

While I agree with Covey's points, I suppose my lack of excitement was housed in the fact that I thought the advice was less than earth-shattering. You see, aren't most of his ideas grounded in the same optimism that Thoreau and Emerson espoused with their Transcendental philosophy of the middle 1800's?

The 8th Habit therefore is even less earth-shattering, though again I must express a general agreement with the principles. If I read Thoreau and Emerson correctly, they seems to agree that each human has to think for himself, trust that he and other people have the potential for greatness if they connect with the universal in themselves and in the world in general, and believe that the self-reliant individual will act in a way that will benefit himself and those around him.

Now go look at the Covey book and tell me that his philosophy isn't essentially transplanted from the woods of Walden to the top offices of the corporate centers of the world.

So why respond?

Could it be that no matter how complicated the world becomes, the more basic is the philosophy that can help people to wend their way through it?

A summary then... Be yourself. No matter the external forces and circumstances, marshall your efforts so that you are making yourself as viable and efficacious as you possibly can. When decorum or propriety tell you to tread softly, listen. But do not stop following the principles and drives that tell you what is right and what is wrong. Right and wrong DO NOT CHANGE with the times. They are intractable, constant, and timeless.

It didn't take a book.