And I quote…

It’s that time of the year again where certain festivities are coming up, where people celebrate another year to come to an end and a fresh new one starts. It also seems a time though where lots of inspirational content is produced or being reused.

Last days I already came across several fancy sounding quotes from highly interesting people. Like these:

“Fail often, fail fast”

“Good design is actually a lot harder to notice than poor design, in part because good designs fit our needs so well that the design is invisible”

— Donald Norman

Both of them from one of my heroes, Don Norman. And of course I am pretty biased when it comes to design related content but judging on the popularity of the quotes I think he might be right ;-).

Other highly appreciated people are also quoted a lot. Think of Einstein or more recent people like Steve Jobs. Stephen Covey is also someone whom everyone knows. This one quote of him made me laugh out loud though, and I quote…

“We are not animals. We are not a product of what has happened to us in our past. We have the power of choice.”

— Stephen R. Covey

People that know me know that I’m a pretty black and white guy when it comes to things like this. That’s partially the reason why I think the above quote is only right in its last sentence. Yes we do have the power of choice.

But we certainly are a product of what has happened to us in the past. People get shaped by what they experience, what they learn from teacher’s, parents, friends and so on. That past forms us to what we are now, it helped shape our mental models.

It’s why everyone is in some extend similar, due to historic events like the current COVID19 crisis, but also unique in their beliefs as we had different parents and friends who taught us differently. It’s the power of choice though on how we cope with those events and choose our future paths.

Covey certainly dropped a few lines there and it made me certainly relook at my favorite ones to in a less biased way. Try to do that too and try to see things in perspective, it might make you even better!

And one last thing, since when are humans, highly intelligent primates, not part of the animal world? 😉