YSunday, February 4, 2007

Have You No Shame?

I hate Stephen Covey.

No, it's not because of SJI. For those Josephians who forgot, or didn't even know in the first place, one of our teachers, gave us a series of talks based on the Stephen Covey's best selling book, The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People. Remember now? It was sometime between the "get religious guy with weird accent to speak about his religion and in the process get ridiculed by immature 16 year old pricks" talks, and the "watch naked babies swimming in the water, while listening to some guy talk about innocence or whatever" talks.

Sad to say, the only part about the 7 Habits talk that I remember was when some moron was making noise and talking to his friend, the teacher became rather angry, and said moron was singled out and scolded. Heh. Good times.

This doesn't say much for my listening skills, (come on, the lectures were given at the last period of the day.) but it says even less for the credibility of the effectiveness of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Irony!

Anyway, back on topic. I hate Stephen Covey. I don't hate him for writing that book of his. No, not at all. I however, despise him for the fact that he came up with the idea before me. Damn him. Damn his shiny bald white head. Damn his Caucasian entrepreneurial skills. For those of you who think I'm insane, hear me out. His book has sold over 15 million copies. If he had one dollar for each book, he would still be enviably rich. As a result of the fame from the book, people have become very willing to pay him to talk (how I would love that) as a motivational speaker. Basically, he repeats whatever is in the book, gesticulates a bit with his hands, and, yayness, he earns more money.

Most of you must be thinking, that I must have an enormous head, an overly inflated sense of self worth, as well as a massive ego, to think that I, a lowly teenage boy, could have written that book. But I don't. I think anyone could do it. All you need is common sense. Let's examine the 7 habits, shall we?

1. Be Proactive
2. Begin With The End In Mind
3. Put First Things First
4. Think Win-Win
5. Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood
6. Synergize
7. Sharpen The Saw

If those don't really make sense, let me elaborate a little.

1. Take responsibility for your actions.
2. (I don't think this need explaining)
3. Do important and urgent stuff first.
4. Try to get the best possible outcome, for all parties involved, of any situation.
5. Listen, be sincere, get the full picture. Don't force you advice on others. Try to be of real help.
6. Make full use of your strengths.
7. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Okay. Done. Now let me ask you. How many of these things did you not know before? Honestly? Zero? Maybe one, for those uninformed ones out there? So basically, should you make the poor decision to buy the book, you're getting $20 worth of common sense, a few dull, repetitive stories, paper, and a nice picture cover.

Stupid con artist.

Stephen Covey is skilled. I really wish I wrote the book first. Unfortunately, the book was published in 1989, and, tragically, I was born in 1990. So unless I become a big clever physicist, and invent a cool looking car that can travel through time, I'm out of luck. Not that I would need the money if I could travel through time. But I digress.

I think we are not looking at one isolated solitary incident. Go to Borders. Look at the self-help section. Go there. It reaches out to infinity. Time stands still. Not only that, you will find the meaning of life and the one universal truth. Okay, that's a lie. But you get my point. All these greedy sell-outs all just want a piece of an ever-growing pie. It's utter nonsense. There are all sorts of books out there that claim themselves to be absolutely vital to a healthy and joyous life. Yet somehow, those who have never read the book are able to survive, and not just crawl about in their own filth, drool spewing forth from the corners of their mouths.

You don't need to be told how to live your life. You know how to. You've always have. Be the master of your destiny, corny as it may sound. Let your long winding path of life lead to where you want to be, not where someone else said you should be. That's my advice, its all I have to say.

And I'm not even gonna charge you a cent for it.

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Blogged @ 10:05 PM