Quote of the Week...from Stephen Covey

Live out of your imagination, not your history.                 ---Stephen Covey.

You may be already know Stephen Covey from his blockbuster hit book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People a few years ago...he's written several spinoff books since then.  So it's not surprising that he would have quite a few practical, uplifting quotes...I found the above one and would like to share what I think of it...

Each and every one of us has our own histories that are composed of the multitudes of experiences that have constructed our unique individual life tapestries...I cannot escape my own personal history as I go forward with my life.  But I also have the ability to consciously employ my imagination and reasoning to take the present moment and behave in a different way from what my past might otherwise dictate to me...and by so doing, I am not only fulfilling the essence of Stephen Covey's exhortation, but also changing who I am by adding something new and positive to my own life's tapestry.  For what I consciously do now will inevitably be part of my history, for better or for worse.  Using my imagination and doing things that are out of my comfort zone serves to widen my choices in the future and allow me more freedom to make it more fulfilling.  Also, by employing my imagination in deciding what to do in the present moment, I am digging more deeply into my own subconscious, where ironically some of my more pressing unmet needs from my past may be submerged...

There is one other thing I'd like to add to Covey's quote: it says to live out of your imagination...but I say that, being social creatures as we humans are, it's also all right to listen to the products of others' imaginings and, if discerned to be good ideas, to adopt them as your own and to live out of them as well...after all, isn't that what I'm doing with this quote?