To Have a Better Life

The author writes an inspiring story called “The Important Things in Life.” Unfortunately, the story has an unknown author, but it has a valuable message that we can learn from it.” Take care of the rocks first – the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand,” a philosophy professor said once to his students. The story focuses on what the most important things are in your life that you should spend more time on them.

The story first begins with the professor who brings a jar and fills it with rocks, and he asks the student if the jar is fill. The students say that it is. After that, he pours pebbles into the jar, between the larger rocks. Then he asks the students again if the jar is full, and they agree. Next, he pours sand into the jar and asks them the same question, and they respond that it’s full. “Now” said the professor, “I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The rocks are the important things – your family, your health, and your children – things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.” Furthermore, the pebbles are the other things that matter, such as a job, a house, and a car, while the sand is everything else, the small stuff. The truth in this is quite clear to see; important things, for example, family, must be on the top of your list.

The professor further mentions” If you put the sand into the jar first there is no room for the pebbles or the rocks”. Similarly, your life if you spend most of your time with less important stuff, you will not have time for things that are more important, such as your family. Therefore, you should pay attention to the things that represents the basic for your life rather than the less important stuff because people sometimes forget the differences between the rocks, pebbles, and sand. As an illustration, work and family are both important, but family is much more important than work. This does not mean that you should not have a job, but you should spend more time with your family and take care of them.

“The Important Things in Life” gives a valuable lesson, which helps you control your life in order to have a happy and successful life. It encourages you to become more responsible in your life to have a better life.

Book Report

 The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

The 7 habits of highly effective people by Stephen R. Covey was first published in 1989, and until now over 15 million copies have been sold all over the world, which encouraged me to read it. It is a great well-written personal development book that gives powerful lessons in personal change.

I really enjoyed reading this book for several reasons. Fist of all, the book was well organized so that you can understand the idea of it easily. As an illustration, in the beginning Covey describes three different stages of personal growth that we move through as we develop the seven habits, which are dependence, independence and interdependence by showing the differences between them. Secondly, Covey further states the seven habits which are: Be Proactive, Begin with the End in Mind, Put First things first, Think Win-Win, Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood, Synergize, and "Sharpen the Saw”. As you can see, he used a really good vocabulary to describe the seven habits. In addition, he was addressing the mind in a convincing manner in the way he was explaining each habit. Lastly, Covey used graphs, tables, and pictures to clarify the content. For instance, he used a nice diagram to show the influence of the three stages, which I mentioned before, on each habit. Obviously, using the visual graphics will simplifies the idea of each habit and makes it easier to understand covey’s point of view. For example, if you don’t understand the way that the author explains one of the seven habits, graphs, table, and the diagram will definitely make you understand the main point of the paragraph.  I highly recommend Steven Covey's Seven Habits, which will help you develop personally and become more effective in your workplace and the way you communicate with other people. In other words, developing these habits will have a lasting effect on your personal effectiveness.