I am now reading book to educate myself as I wrote in my last weblog (id:yagian:20070415:1176604209). This week I have read Stephen R. Covey “I have read Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” (Running Pr ISBN:0762408332) in this week.
I have already known the name of this book, but I was not willing to read this book because I have prejudice against this kind of “self-help” books. But I try to read it because I suffered a setback and I am going over my way of life and work recently.
At the beginning of this book the author wrote that a universal principle of life across cultures and religions was mentioned in this book, but I didn’t agree with that. Max Weber wrote that Benjamin Franklin “The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin” (Dover Pubns ISBN:0486290735) was a typical example spirit of capitalism in “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” (Dover Pubns ISBN:048642703X). This “Seven Habits” is a direct descendant of “The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin”, and it isn’t universal.
I would have given up reading “Seven Habits”, because I couldn’t consent this part. But now that I thought that I could get something useful to change myself, I continued to read this book. I get a lot of things useful.
I will quote a passage of this book.
To read great books makes you understand your society, expands your paradigm and train your intellect. … When you try to understand what the author says, it will be more effective for you. When you valuate it on just your own value, you couldn’t understand what the author says and make the value of reading less.
I make my perspective smaller by evaluating things on just my small experience. Such arrogance would make my setback.
