To Live Proactively
I'm rereading 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and in reading the chapter on the first private victory habit (Be Proactive) I stumbled into a gold mine of excerpts that resonated with me where I am today.
Our unique human endowments lift us above the animal world. The extent to which we exercise and develop these endowments empowers us to fulfill our uniquely human potential. Between stimulus and response is our greatest power — the freedom to choose. (p 78)
Gut punch 1: stimulus and response are guaranteed, our response is a result of our freedom to choose.
It [proactivity] means that as human beings, we are responsible for our own lives. Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions (p 78)