7 1/2 habits

7 1/2 habits sounds so much better than just 7 habits or 8 habits, doesn't it? Or maybe I just like fractions. I had to read The 7 habits of highly effective people for a class in high school, and I'm sure I would have enjoyed it a lot more had it been The 7 3/4 habits of highly effective people or The 7 1/16 habits of highly effective people. They just sound a lot more interesting. And then I could find out what 3/4 or 1/16 of a habit is. I won't say that's something I've always wanted to know, but now that I've thought of it I suspect it's going to bug me until I figure it out. (Hey, this blog does call itself "ramblings." No false advertising here.)

But we're supposed to talk about the habits from the slideshow. So...the easiest habit for me probably is to begin with the end in mind. I've got all sorts of things on my "to learn" list - it grows at least monthly, if not weekly or daily. Some of them are pretty easy to accomplish, but others, such as learning or brushing up on languages, are going to take a while.

The most difficult habit is a little harder to pin down. I've got some aspect of each habit pretty well set - I do take responsibility for my own learning in many areas, but I just need to find the time to do that for everything (or at least most things!) that I want to learn. I know resources for many of the things I want to learn, and those that I don't know, I can find relatively easily by searching or asking others. The trouble is, the urge to learn new things doesn't go away, and even if I were retired, I know I still wouldn't have enough time to do everything I want to.

So I have to prioritize, and many of the things I want to learn I just can't do right now, and sometimes that annoys me. I look forward to times when I'll have more time, though, so that I can hopefully get started on another thing on my "to learn" list. Part of the "trouble" there is that lifelong learning is just that - most things you want to learn aren't things that you can stop learning. It's an ongoing process, even with something you know pretty well.