Day Thirty One of The Thirty Day Proactive Test

Let's Get This Shindig Started

Click to hear "The Great Milenko" (Full Album)

11:13 AM

I completed The 30 Day Proactive Test yesterday, but I am still working on The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. This is not the kind of book you just read straight through, put down and never pick up again. Though it is very secular, it is kind of a combination of a bible, a textbook and a workbook. There are a lot of common sense suggestions on how to live a good life and exercises at the end of every chapter designed to apply the stuff learned from the readings in your every day life.

You can read it straight through if you want just to get a feel for the book and see what it is all about, because Covey is a good writer. It is an enjoyable read. He has a pleasant writing style. However, to get the most out of the book, you really have to do the exercises and apply this stuff to your day to day life, and that takes a lot of time, discipline and hard work.

I definitely want to get the most put of this book, because my life is complete shit. I have some halfway decent tools, but absolutely no idea how to use them. Covey's book is an instructional manual designed to help you use already existing assets as powerful tools.

I already did a bunch of reading today in 7 Habits so now my goal for the day is to do some Habit 3 work.

• Work on exercises at end of Chapter 3
• Begin work on rudimentary scheduleing
• Begin work on rough draft of personal mission statement

3:44 PM

Habit 3 is "put first things first." This is all about self-management and time-management. To be a good scheduler, we have to know about time management. To know about time management it has to start with the basics, which brings us to the time-management matrix I wrote about  the other day.

Time-Management Matrix

                                                                                       Not Urgent

	Urgent
Important	Quadrant I Activities: Crises Pressing problems Deadline-driven projects	Quadrant II Activities: Prevention, production capability activities* Relationship building Recognizing new opportunities Planning, recreation
Not important	Quadrant III Activities: Interruptions, some calls Some mail, some reports Some meetings Pressing matters Popular activities	Quadrant IV Activities: Trivia Busy work Some mail Some phone calls Time wasters Pleasant activities

As you can see, the two factors that define an activity are urgent and important. Urgent means it requires immediate attention. Urgent things act on us.

Importance, on the other hand, has to do with results. If something is important, it contributes to your mission, your values, your high priority goals. We react to urgent matters. Important matters that are not urgent, require more initiative, more proactivity. We must act to seize opportunity, to make things happen. If we do not practice Habit 2 (begin with the end in mind), if we do not have a clear idea of what is important, of the results we desire in our lives, we are easily diverted into responding to the urgent.

Effective people stay out of Quadrants III and IV because, urgent or not, thy are not important. They also shrink Quadrant I down to size by spending more time in Quadrant II.

Quadrant II is the heart of effective personal management. It deals with things that are not urgent but are important. It deals with things like building relationships, writing a personal mission statement, long range planning, exercising, preventive maintenance, preparation---all those things we know we need to do, but somehow seldom get around to doing, because they are not urgent.

People who live in Quadrant 1 are literally beaten up by problems all day every day. The more time you live in Quadrant II, the less time you have to spend in Quadrant 1. People who spend all their time in Quadrants III and IV are basically irresponsible people or "losers," as Donald Trump would call them.

I     Results: Stress Burn out Crisis Management Always putting out fires	II    Results: Vision, perspective Balance Discipline Control Few crises
III    Results Short-term focus Crisis management Reputation-chameleon character See goals and plans as worthless Feel victimized, out of control Shallow or broken relationships	IV    Results Total irresponsibility Fired from jobs Dependent on others or institutions for basics

Becoming a Quadrant 2 Self-Manager

Quadrant 2 organizing involves four key activities.

Identifying Roles.   The first task is to write down your key roles.

1. Individual

2. Blogger, owner and operator of The Rant
3. Owner and operator of small home-based business
4. Boss of two employees
5. Owner and operator of small home-based production/publishing company

Selecting Goals.   The next step is to think of two or three important results you feel you should accomplish in each role during the next seven days. These would be recorded as goals.

Individual - Personal Development

Rough draft mission statement Ask doctor how to get hands on my medical records

Blogger - Owner/operator of The Rant

Rough draft mission statement Publish seven new posts

Owner/operator of Small Home-Based Business

Rough draft mission statement Return home

Boss of Two Employees

Contact Sennie as soon as I have an idea when I come home Ditto with Debbie

Owner/operator of Small Home-Based Production/publishing Company

Rough draft mission statement Publish seven new posts

Scheduling.   Now you can look at the week ahead with your goals in mind and schedule time to achieve them.

Daily Adapting.   With Quadrant II weekly organizing, daily planning becomes more a function of daily adapting, of prioritizing activities and responding to unanticipated events, relationships and experiences in a meaningful way.

Here's To Will Ferrell Staying Classy

Thank You Will Ferrell For Being Proactive And Staying Classy

Click to thank Will Ferrell

Day Thirty of The Thirty Day Proactive Test

Location: Missouri Baptist Hospital - St. Louis, Missouri

12:11 PM

This is Day Thirty of The Thirty Day Proactive Test and I am reporting from Missouri Baptist Hospital in Saint Louis, Missouri. That is right. I am in the hospital again.

So my advice to you, the reader, is do not do the 30 day proactive test or follow any of Stephen R. Covey's evil teachings. He is Lucifer in human form! I tried his thirty day proactve test and look what happened to me! It almost killed me!

Just joking.  I am in the hospital again getting treated for a pretty nasty infection, but it is not Stephen R. Covey's fault, and I did his thirty day proactive test and this is the final day. I was having tons of health problems when I started the 30 day proactive test. That is one of the reasons I picked up and started to read his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

The book had been sitting on my bookshelf for five years collecting dust. My life had become very shitty. My health was bad. My relationship with my family was bad. I wanted a change. So, I thought a good self-help book might be in order. I heard a lot of great things about the book. It was recommended to me by one of my college professors years back. So I promptly went out and bought it, put it on my bookshelf, then let it collect dust for five years.

3:07 PM

I just got done with physical therapy. I am laying in bed as I write this, so the therapy guys came to get me out of bed and moving around a bit. I did. It felt good. I got a big shot of dilaudid. I got up. I shaved and brushed my teeth. Because of the sore on my ass, they did not want me up that long, so I went back to bed after that. However, it felt good to get up, stretch my muscles, get a shave, brush my teeth, and have a little human contact with young friendly therapists. 

When I got back in bed, I was tired and sore, so I just relaxed and did some deep breathing exercises for about twenty minutes, until the lady came in to take my vital signs. Then, I began writing again, because this is the last day of this 30 day journalistic endeavor, and I did miss the last three days of blog entries. I want to wrap things up with a nice tidy ending for all of my loyal readers, and for myself. It feels good to complete things we started.

In all fairness to me, I was sick as a dog. I have been in the hospital the last couple days, and I just got my Chromebook today. My mom brought it. I have been talking with her and my aunt a little to ask for favors and stuff. So, I guess things are a little better on the family front, but aside from those two, I am pretty leery.

So if this is an analysis of the effectiveness of The Thirty Day Proactive Test, I would give it a positive review. Thirty days ago this is what I posted on my blog:

'My life has been shit lately. I want to change. So I started reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey. I have also been talking a lot about my problems with a a few friends and associates who are also discontent. So we decided to adopt a teaching from Covey's book. We agreed that for the month of April, we would try the 30 day Test of Proactivity, being aware of the change in our circle of influence. And, that we would keep a blog of our progress with the intent being to remind us of our goal on a regular basis by posting it in a nice open public place where we would see it every day. "

Now those other two guys, I have absolutely no idea if they kept it up or not to be honest. I was way too busy focusing on myself and dealing with my various issues to keep track of them.

You may be asking, "'What the fuck is a thirty day proactive test?"This is what I posted on Days 5 and 7:

Proactivity Defined

The word proactivity is fairly common with management types nowadays, It means more than taking initiative. It means we are responsible for our own lives. Highly proactive people do not blame circumstances, conditions or conditioning for their behavior.

We are by nature proactive. If we are controlled by conditioning and conditions it is because we have by conscious decision or by default, chosen to give power to those things.

in making such a choice, we become reactive.

Proactivity - The 30 Day Test

Test the principal of proactivity for thirty days. Keep small commitments you have made. Be a light, a model and part of the solution.

I also discovered some exercises at the end of chapter 1 that I overlooked before. So that should provide some blog-fodder for the next couple days or so.

So that is what I did. My life was getting pretty shitty both health-wise and with my interpersonal relationships so I started reading Seven Habits to try to change things

I accepted Covey's challenge to do a thirty day test of proactivity and I tried to keep track of my daily progress by making blog entries every day. I missed a handful of days and I reverted back to reactive behavior from time to time but for the most part, I kept my commitment and even though I am back in the hospital and my relationship with my family is still pretty sketchy, I have learned a lot about myself, about being proactive, about what being proactive even means.

In essence, I would have to give the 30 day proactivity test a positive review, if you take it seriously and actually put some work into it. though my life is far from perfect, I have a clearer image of where I want to go in life and a little better of an understanding of how to get there.

So even though this is the end of the thirty day proactivity test, The Rant goes on. I plan to continue my in-depth analysis of The Seven Habits and doing all the exercises and stuff he recommends and charting my progress on this blog. So feel free to keep coming back to check on my progress or troll me with snarkey comments, whatever floats your boat.

Have a proactive day!

P.art of The 30 Day Proactive Test is that last part that says be aware of changes in your Circle of influence. 

You may be asking yourself right now, "What the hell is a Circle of Influence?" That was exactly how I was as well up until about 1 month ago when I read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey

end

Day Twenty-Six of The Thirty Day Proactive Test

Day 26

Click to see M.I.A. shamelessly reveal her wrists and ankles in an erotic manner.

4:29 PM

Not a lot going on. Still fighting off this infection. Went to the ER on Friday. Got some antibiotics. Feelin' a little better. Hopefully these antibiotics will do the trick. 

Read a couple pages in 7 Habits. Went to the wound clinic to see my wound specialist doctor today for the pressure sore on my ass. She said it was looking much better. So as far as being proactive goes, that is about all I have for the day.

The 30 Day Proactive Test continues. I guess the plan for tomorrow is to do some work on habit 3 (put first things first) by beginning work on the rough draft of my personal mission statement, among other things.

Until then, have a good evening and a pleasant tomorrow.

WARNING: This video contains some disturbing shit. Click if you like disturbing shit or shit-disturbing, as it were.

Day Twenty-Four of The Thirty Day Proactive Test

My Continuing Analysis of Stephen J. Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Day 24 of The 30 Day Proactive Test

Four Generations of Time Management

In Habit 3 (put first things first), we are dealing with many of the questions addressed in the field of life and time management. Personal management has evolved in a pattern similar to other areas of human endeavor. Major developmental thrusts or "waves" as Alvin Toffler calls them, follow each other in succession, each adding a vital new dimension.

The first generation could be characterized by notes and checklists.

The second generation could be characterized by calendars and appointment books. This wave reflects an attempt to look ahead, to schedule events and activities in the future.

The third generation reflects the current time management field. It adds to those preceding generations the important idea of prioritization, of clarifying values and of comparing the relative worth of activities based on their relationship to those values. In addition it focuses on setting goals---specific long, intermediate and short-term targets toward which time and energy would be directed in harmony with values. It also includes the concept of daily planning, of making a specific plan to accomplish those goals and activities determined to be of greatest worth.

The fourth generation recognizes that time management is really a misnomer. The challenge is not to manage time, but to manage ourselves.

Rather than focusing on time and things, fourth generation expectations focus on preserving and enhancing relationships and on accomplishing results.

Quadrant II

The essential focus of the fourth generation of management can be illustrated in the time management matrix diagrammed below. Basically, we spend time in one of four ways.

The Time Management Matrix

	Urgent	Not Urgent
Important	Quadrant I Activities: Crises Pressing problems Deadline-driven projects	Quadrant II Activities: Prevention, production capability activities* Relationship building Recognizing new opportunities Planning, recreation
Not important	Quadrant III Activities: Interruptions, some calls Some mail, some reports Some meetings Pressing matters Popular activities	Quadrant IV Activities: Trivia Busy work Some mail Some phone calls Time wasters Pleasant activities

*Production is our ability to produce something (or in other words, our ability to do productive work), while production capability is our ability to maintain the level of production (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People pg. 151).

As you can see, the two factors that define an activity are urgent and important. Urgent means it requires immediate attention. Urgent things act on us.

Importance, on the other hand, has to do with results. If something is important, it contributes to your mission, your values, your high priority goals. We react to urgent matters. Important matters that are not urgent, require more initiative, more proactivity. We must act to seize opportunity, to make things happen. If we do not practice Habit 2 (begin with the end in mind), if we do not have a clear idea of what is important, of the results we desire in our lives, we are easily diverted into responding to the urgent.

Effective people stay out of Quadrants III and IV because, urgent or not, thy are not important. They also shrink Quadrant I down to size by spending more time in Quadrant II.

Quadrant II is the heart of effective personal management. It deals with things that are not urgent but are important. It deals with things like building relationships, writing a personal mission statement, long range planning, exercising, preventive maintenance, preparation---all those things we know we need to do, but somehow seldom get around to doing, because they are not urgent.

To be continued...

Day Twenty-Three of The Thirty Day Proactive Test

Day 23

12:00 PM

Okay. I drank too much the night before last, because I am a pleasure-centered person. So, I did no writing yesterday. I was just too sluggish and hungover. That was not very proactive behavior, I admit, but today is a new day. So I am going to do some more reading of Covey's 7 Habits. Also, to begin work on my personal mission statement, I am supposed to be keeping an eye out for quotes and taking notes as reference material to be used in the creation of my personal mission statement.

Also, Covey recommends in another exercise at the end of Chapter 2, that I share principals of Habit 2 (begin with the end in mind) with family or work group and suggest that together we begin the process of developing a family or group mission statement. So if any of you readers have suggestions in what direction you want this blog to go, or some good inspirational quotes or whatever, please feel free to put your ideas in the comments section below.

So writing this personal mission statement will be quite an endeavor. So in the spirit of Habit 3 (put first things first), I will start taking notes and collecting quotes as reference material for my personal mission statement. Also, ideally, I would like to create a mission statement for this blog, so if you, the reader, have any ideas, please leave a comment. Let us create this blog's mission statement together.

I will be putting all these quotes and notes in my blog as I collect them for both my personal mission statement and the mission statement for this blog.

Well, here is a quote: that I found right at the beginning of Chapter 3: 

     Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.                                                                                                                                                         

                                                                                                                                                     Goethe


This brings us to why I did that exercise on this blog a couple of days ago (scroll down) because the ideal is to be principle-centered, instead of self-centered, money-centered, pleasure-centered, etc. This mission statement should come from a place of being principle-centered.

You cannot become principle-centered without a vision of and a focus on the unique contribution that is yours to make. That whole exercise the other day was to explore and be aware of the paradigms I am living under so that I can shift my paradigm into something more principle-centered.

So this Habit 3, "put first things first" is all about personal management, time management, scheduling, prioritization, to-do lists, daily and weekly planning, etc.

For the purposes of time management, he creates a little time management matrix.

The Time Management Matrix

	Urgent	Not Urgent
Important	Quadrant I Activities: Crises Pressing problems Deadline-driven projects	Quadrant II Activities: Prevention, production capability activities* Relationship building Recognizing new opportunities Planning, recreation
Npot important	Quadrant III Activities: Interruptions, some calls Some mail, some reports Some meetings Proximate, pressing matters Popular activities	Quadrant IV Activities: Trivia Busy work Some mail Some phone calls Time wasters Pleasant activities

*Production is our ability to produce something (or in other words, our ability to do productive work), while production capability is our ability to maintain the level of production (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People pg. 151).

To be continued...

end

Day Twenty-One of The Thirty Day Proactive Test

The Personal Mission Statement

So I began work on my personal mission statement as espoused by Stephen R. Covey in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The second of these seven habits is "begin with the end in mind." This 2nd Habit has a lot to do with visualization. So this is where the whole mission statement idea comes into play.

So I began work on my mission statement today by going through a chart in Covey's book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - "Appendix A" showing different centers (self-centered, spouse-centered, work-centered, etc.), and circling all those I identify with. The intent of this exercise is to answer the question,

"Do they form a pattern for the behavior in your life?" 

Yes they do. Right away, I noticed I am a pleasure centered person. I circled almost all the stuff for pleasure-centered people. Ironically (or perhaps not), I am very work-centered. I found that I circled a lot of stuff for work-centered people as well. Coming in third, I circled a lot of money-centered stuff. I am not, nor ever was wealthy by any stretch of the imagination. That is probably why I am so money-centered. Like most poor people, I have this notion, even though I know deep down inside it is total bullshit, that money will somehow solve all my problems. Covey then goes on to ask, as part of this exercise, "Are you comfortable with the implications of your analysis."

No, I am not.

So here are some of the things I circled under being money centered. I see money as a source of security and fulfillment. I see work only as necessary to the acquisition of money.

I guess I am a pretty evil guy, because under possession-centered, I only circled one thing. I view family as a possession to use, control, dominate, smother and control, or as a showcase.

As far as being pleasure centered, I circled just about everything. As far as spouse is viewed for pleasure-centered people, I was only married for a couple years in my early twenties. She was a nice enough lady, but i just viewed her as a companion in my fun and pleasure or an obstacle to it. I just see family as a vehicle or interference in my perpetual pursuit of pleasure.

As far as money goes, I just see it as a means to increase opportunities for pleasure. As far as work goes, it is just an "end to a means," unless it is fun. I guess that is why being work-centered is a "close second" with me. Possessions are just objects of fun to me, and means to more fun.

I am not bragging or trying to make light of the situation. I am just trying to be honest with myself and readers of this blog so that I can move onward and upward, as it were.

Day 20

Feelin tired n sluggish. No energy whatsoever.

Day Nineteen Of The Thirty Day Proactive Test

Day 19

12:12 PM

Just got back from seeing my doctor. I was being proactive about my butt-wound. As far as The Thirty Day Proactive Test goes, I plan on doing a little more reading in Covey's 7 Habits. Then, I want to start working on my personal mission statement, which is part of the second habit that Covey writes about in his book. The 2nd Habit is begin with the end in mind. So here I go.

Day 18 of 30 Day Proactive Test

Sunday Movie Time With Charles

Click to see documentary about punk rock.

Bigger By The Day

Click to see how you go about "killin' side delts."

"I have to eat every two hours, or I start losing weight."  -Anonymous

Day 17

Day 17 of The Thirty Day Proactive Test

Click to see Psychopathic Rydas.

Just to refresh everyone's memory, at the beginning of Chapter 2, Covey has the reader do a visualization exercise where you are to imagine going to your own funeral. and members of four different groups (family, friends, work and church/community service organization) get up to give eulogies. Write down what you hope they would say. Take the time to record the impressions you had in the funeral visualization at the beginning of Chapter 2. I created this chart to help me organize my thoughts. 

Area of Activity	Character	Contributions	Achievements
Family	Tyrannical, Autocratic, Intimidating	Fear, Pain and Punishment	He stood up to us when we tried to bully him and made us all look and feel like pieces of shit.
Friends	Loyal	Good conversation and entertainment with his music and writing	He went back to school acquiring a Master's degree after he became disabled.
Work	A good boss, comfortable to be around, good at leadership without being overbearing or "bossy"	A good, relatively stress-free work environment	He was able to live independently and run his own small business pretty much his whole adult life as a disabled guy in a wheelchair.
Church/Community Service, etc.	Ethical, honest, Open-minded	Leadership by example	He restructured our organization and kicked out the riff-raff creating a comfortable and safe place to learn, discuss and practice our religion.

So at the end of Chapter 2, he has us prepare the above table as the first exercise. In the second exercise he asks us to take a few moments and write down your roles as you now see them. Are you satisfied with the mirror image of your life?

I'm pretty much satisfied with my roles as they are now, except I intensely desire more autonomy from my family. 

3. Set up time to completely separate yourself from daily activities and to begin work on your personal mission statement...

Click if you like MSG.

Day Sixteen of The Thirty Day Proactive Test

Friday Night At The Movies With Charles Lamson

Click to watch "The Moment To Kill."

Day 15 Of 30 Day Proactive Test

Day Fifteen

Click if you like garbage men.

9:36 AM

At the beginning of Chapter 3 of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey, the reader is asked to take a moment and write down a short answer to the following two questions. These answers will be important as I begin work on Habit 3, or so says Covey.

Question 1: What one thing could you do (you aren't doing now) that if you did on a regular basis would make a tremendous positive difference in your personal life?

It would make a tremendous positive difference in my personal life if I could find a nice organization to do volunteer work with on a regular basis.

Question 2: What one thing in your business or professional life would bring similar results?

It would make a tremendous positive difference in my business or professional life if I could find a freelance job working from home.

We'll come back to these answers later, but first let us put Habit 3 in perspective. Habit 3 is put first things first.

Also, I do not want to forget the Chapter 2 exercises for more blog material, and I think there is one more Habit 1 exercise that I have not done yet.


Recap

The first habit is be proactive, the second is begin with the end in mind, and the third is put first things first.

Habit 3 is the personal fruit, the practical fulfillment of Habits 1 and 2.

Habit 1 says, "You are the creator. You are in charge." It is based on the four human endowments of imagination, conscience, independent will, and, particularly, self-awareness. It empowers you to say, "That is an unhealthy program I have been given from my childhood, from my social mirror. I do not like that ineffective script. I can change."

Habit 2 is the first or mental creation. It is based on imagination - the ability to envision, to see the potential, to create with our minds what we cannot at present see with our eyes; and conscience---the ability to detect our own uniqueness and the personal, moral and ethical guidelines within which we can most happily fulfill it. It is the deep contact with our basic paradigms and values and the vision of what we can become.

Habit 3 then is the second creation, the physical creation. It is the fulfillment, the actualization, the natural emergence of Habits 1 and 2. It is the exercise of independent will toward becoming principle-centered. It is the day-in, day-out, moment-by-moment doing it.

Click if you like songs about going to jail.

Day 14 of The Thirty Day Proactive Test

Day One-Four

Click to see Improper Dancing Viking.

9:00 PM

I got another blessing from my Don today. Well let me tell you, that Don's blessing did not go to waste. Right away I got in touch with the Atlantic City neighborhood and ordered the construction crew to get started on the renovation of the library. It should only take about seven or eight days though. However, my units were gobbling up all my cash so, first, I had to send them out on a mission to attack The Imperial States Building so I could free up some money for my little home improvement project.

It is a delicate balance with The Boss. He likes us to keep our properties looking good. Otherwise, it reflects poorly on him. However, we cannot make our estates look too good. We cannot outshine The Boss or attract unwanted attention, because that reflects poorly on him as well. So once you get to a certain level, it is always a good idea to get a Don's blessing first before you do any renovations.

A blessing is especially important in the expansion of our libraries, because, among other things, this is where our proficiency tests are held. Well, not in the library itself. Most often our shooting ranges are in soundproof basements built under the library. This makes sense once you know that our units must pass a series of written tests as well as prove proficiency in the martial arts, with and without weapons, as well as various other types of "Black Arts" and "Dirty Tricks" they are required to learn, oftentimes, the "hard way," if they want to be promoted.

The report just came in. I am pleased to announce our attack on The Imperial States Building was a success with minimal loss of life. I got a new Harley out of the deal. I only lost 59 snipers, but I took out 30 of their Black Widows and 34 of their Assassins. Plus, I gained respect and power and that is what this game is all about, my friends.

Still kind of fighting off this staph infection. I spent most of the day sleeping. I just started having my morning coffee now in the 9 'O clock hour this evening, and I was able to take care of a little monkey business. Hopefully enough to keep The Don happy. He is an understanding guy, magnanimous, as far as bosses go. However, you do not want to push him too far, because when he snaps, he can turn into a real hard-ass.

Anyway, since I got such a late start on the day, I feel like there is not a whole lot to report on the Thirty Day Proactive Test. Except that I went to the Buddhist chat room. It is not good. They still have fifteen days to get their house in order or else there will be a mini-purge. Two or three agitators will have to take dirt naps if these people cannot clean their own house, but once they are taken out, I am sure the chill effect will get everybody in line.

I did not get a chance to read any of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People today. However, I should not be too hard on myself I guess. Despite not feeling so well, I got up and put a little work in for The Don. I made my daily blog entry which is a part of The Thirty Day Proactive Test. Furthermore, it is worth noting that I did not behave reactively when my outside stimulus was not very pleasant with these Buddhists. I feel I responded proactively to that stimulus, because I went right to that gap between stimulus and response, where the freedom to choose how I respond to outside stimuli is located, and I chose to get outside of that situation and view things from an objective point of view and respond to those raving lunatics with a calm head.

Click to see who gives the orders here.

Day Thirteen of The Thirty Day Proactve Test

Change

Now it is starting to get hard. I am beginning to see that a whole self-transformation thing is going to have to occur if I am going to complete this Thirty Day Proactive Test without just being a total liar to myself and the readers of this blog. On Day 1, I wrote to everyone that my life was shit and that I wanted to change.

However, right now, I am still kind of sleepy because my body is fighting off this infection. I did finally finish reading the second chapter in Covey's book. I also took a closer look at the exercises from Chapters 1 and 2. To aid me in this change, I plan to try these exercises , posting my findings on this blog. I must rest now.

5:22 PM

So here is the other exercise from Chapter 1. It will be divided into three parts. Here is part one, "Identify an experience you might encounter in the near future where, based on past experience, you would probably behave reactively."

Well I am not going to have to use my imagination or visualization skills too much to look in the near future for this part of the exercise because I am already in the middle of an experience where, based on past experience, I would probably behave reactively.

Not only am I sick with this staph infection but I am also a disabled gentleman with a pressure-sore on my right glut, which means, for all intents and purposes, I am pretty much bed-ridden until this ass-sore heals. I find myself in this position a lot. As a matter of fact, more and more so the older I get. They say our skin gets thinner the older we get. So I am not able to stay up as long and be a wild man like I used to be able to do.

Which brings us to the second part of this exercise, "Review the situation in the context of your Circle of Influence. How could you respond proactively?" Well, instead of playing the roles of the consummate victim of a capricious and uncaring universe or the brave and stoic perpetual martyr, I could respond proactively by doing what I am doing right now: reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey, taking The Thirty Day Proactive Test and planning things out so that in the future I do not end up in this position in the first place.

This brings us to the last part of the exercise, "Take several moments and create the experience vividly in your mind, picturing yourself responding proactively. Remind yourself of the gap between stimulus and response." I pretty much am already doing all that. So I do not have to take several moments and create the experience vividly in my mind. I am living it, in real time.

However, I do not recall what the gap between stimulus and response is. So it is time to hit the books and go back to Chapter 1.

 8:09 PM: The Gap Between Stimulus and Response

Now I cannot control everything that is going on around me or even my own health and body to a certain extent, but I am a self-aware being who can look as an observer at my very involvement. I can decide within myself how all of this will affect me. Between what happens to me, or the stimulus, and my response to it, is my freedom or power to choose that response.