The Clock And The Compass In Our Life....

What is the CLOCK AND COMPASS in our life???? I started to read The First Things First by Stephen Covey recently and read about the clock and compass in life.

The clock represents our commitments, appointments, schedules, goals, activities - what we do with, and how we manage our time. The compass represents our vision, values, principles, mission, conscience, direction - what we feel is important and how we lead our lives. The struggle comes when we sense a gap between the clock and the compass - when what we do doesn't contribute to what is most important in our lives.

For some of us, the pain of the gap is intense. We can't seem to walk our talk. We feel trapped, controlled by other people or situations. We're always responding to crises. We're constantly caught up in "the thick of thin things" - putting out fires and never making time to do what we know would make a difference. We feel as though our lives are being lived for us.

For others of us, the pain is vague discomfort. We just can't get what we feel we should do, what we want to do, and what we actually do all together. We're caught in dilemmas. We feel so guilty over what we're not doing. We can't enjoy what we do.

Some of us feel empty. We've defined happiness solely in terms of professional or financial achievement, and we find that our "success" did not bring us the satisfaction we thought it would. We've painstakingly climbed the "ladder of success" rung by rung - the diploma, the late nights, the promotions - only to discover as we reached the top rung that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall. Absorbed in the ascent, we've left a trail of shattered relationships or missed moments of deep, rich living in the wake of the intense, overfocused effort. In our race up the rungs, we simply did not take the time to do what really mattered most.

Others of us feel disoriented or confused. We have no real sense of what "first things" are. We move from one activitiy to another on automatic. Life is mechanical. Once in a while, we wonder if there's any meaning in our doing.

Some of us know we're out of balance, but we don't have confidence in other alternatives. Or we feel the cost of change is too high. Or we're afraid to try. It's easier to just live with the imbalance.

(Source: First Things First by Stephen R. Covey)

So, are you falling in one of the dillemas as stated??? How to close the gap between the clock and the compass in our life?? If you have any opinions, please leave a comments here :)