Remembering the Beginning

As I read over the second of Stephen Covey’s habits the other day, there was something so familiar about the concept. It wasn’t just that I’d read the book once before because I can remember reading it on the train ride from Sarasota to LA in 2003. I was remembering it on a different level, as if I had experienced it somehow.

I have engaged in the process of writing a personal mission statement. Stephen Covey is exactly right when he says that it will help you gain clarity. The power of visualization is a wonderful thing. Just taking the time to think through what is important to you, identifying roles that you play and the goals you wish to accomplish, is of tremendous help in reducing stress and inducing a feeling of effectiveness.

Yet even that wasn’t what I was remembering so I continued to read through the chapter.

In it Covey wrote about being a principle-centered person and how it could help you achieve true balance in life. People tend to center their decisions and goal making around things that are outside of themselves.

I remembered someone else telling me that. The experience I was having wasn’t from reading the book; it was someone sharing the insights with me. As I looked over the centers upon which people base their lives, I distinctly remembered two “people” telling me about them, my head going back and forth between them as they played a tennis match of ideas.

“Husbands.”

“Wives.”

“Family.”

“Work.”

“Money.”

“Poverty.”

“Possessions.”

“Recession.”

“Pleasure.”

“Pain.”

“Friends.”

“Enemies.”

“Church.”

“Self.”

When they stopped on “Self,” I remember them looking at me. I could only discern their big, black, almond-shaped eyes, my memory still hiding their faces in fog, as if they were waiting for me to fully understand what they were getting at. Slowly, they started again, talking about principles and the centered life.

“Security,” one of them said, “is more than just your physical safely. It is your self esteem, the realization of your true worth.”

“Guidance,” the other one said, “will be offered to you by many.”

“Even us,” the taller one said.

“Yes, even us,” the shorter one agreed. “But, ultimately, to be a complete and balanced person, your guidance will have to come from you.”

I remember thinking that I was doomed.

“That is why you use principles to center yourself,” the shorter one continued as if he could read my worried mind. “Principles are natural laws. They are unshakable, immovable, the perfect reference point from with to find guidance.”

As he said it, I knew that it was true, and a comfort overtook me. Even then, it seemed like this lesson was being more discovered than learned. As if it had been there all along, but I wasn’t able to truly see it until it was brought to my attention by two really odd-looking characters that looked an awful lot like…

“You’ve known this all along, Steve,” the taller one said, again detecting my thoughts. “That is the essence of wisdom. All humans have access to it, but not all of you choose to tap into it.”

All of you? I was starting to remember more of the sensation of having the conversation, but I couldn’t remember actually having it.

“Living by principles instead of outside forces gives you a much more direct line to wisdom,” he continued, “the ability to use discernment, judgment, and understanding.”

“Combined with your wisdom, guidance, and security, living a principle-centered life gives you much more power by which to act and create what you are meant to create.”

“Do what you are supposed to do.”

“Be who you are supposed to be.”

As they leaned in and their faces came into focus, the two aliens asked in unison, “What was your mission again, Steve?”

I smiled back at them. “To write the world.”