"He Never withdrew His Hand from A Handshake Until The Other Did"

The title of this entry is borrowed from a saying describing the prophet of Islam, Mohammed (May the Peace and Blessing of Allah be Upon him.)

It talks about how, when shaking another man's hand, he would keep his hand in the other's palm until the other man withdrew his hand. He did so because he didn't want to hurt others' feelings.

Covey says, and I'm paraphrasing, " Did you ever try to be efficient with people?! You simply can't. When someone comes to you crying or expressing a painful experience, you can't say to that person, 'You've got 10 minutes before I move on to the next item on my agenda.'" He also advocates that using the compass (using principles to guide your actions) will yield more happiness than using the clock (using scheduled events to guide your actions.)

In other realms of life, I suggest the same is true. In my opinion, life essentially is not about quantity or how much time we spend doing an activity.

Happiness in life is about quality; choosing the right thing to do and doing it well.

Happiness is spending wonderful moments with the people you love. It was never about the amount of time you spend. Yes, you have to spend time with loved ones, but in my opinion a "wonderful time" is, by definition, enough time, not necessarily lots of time.

On the job, your superiors usually remember how well you did your work, not how much work you do. In other words, they'd opt to give an important task (the kind that results in promotions!) to people who deliver quality work.

Worship has very much to do with quality, not amount. It's not how many times you pray; it's how well you do so. It's not how much you give to charity; it's how sincere you are when giving your donation.

Our knowledge is not measured by how much we know, but rather by how much we truly understand.

In organizations, it's not how much the employees work that makes a difference, it's the quality of the product/ service that retains and builds customers. It's perfecting the 20 percent of the core business that produces the 80 percent of results.

Additionally, Goleman claims that workers in medium complexity jobs, such as mechanics, are twelve times more productive when exhibiting emotional intelligence than those not emotionally intelligent. At managerial positions, it is much higher, and at lower complexity jobs, it's about 3 times more productive. He suggests that emotional intelligence is much more important as it relates to success than mental intelligence. Emotional intelligence is about understanding yourself and others, and using that knowledge wisely. This again does not lend itself easily to the confines of time, but to quality.

Our ancestors did much less work, yet were much happier. I suggest the reason is that they focused on the all important 20 percent of the core issues in their lives, which only required a minimal effort on their part.

They did a lot less work and were much much happier.

They didn't know a lot, but they knew what mattered most!

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