40 percent of smokers begin between the ages of 15-19. According to researchers, the intensity of spiritual-psychological and social problems between the ages of 13 and 19 puts youths under a higher risk of starting smoking. Smoking as an adolescent can be related to low self-esteem and academic problems. It is an established fact that teenage smoking is the most influential risk factor for adult smoking. A young person looking for a role model can be influenced by one’s parents, teachers, and friends. Family structure and social environments are influential regarding smoking and other addictive behaviors. Keeping away from smokers reduces the likelihood of smoking.

It is reported that light depression increases smoking, and that regular smokers’ have higher incidences of depression and suicide when compared to non-smokers. Smoking rates are higher with those who do manual labor, who have smokers among family members or close friends, who live in urban centers, who have a high income, who work under difficult conditions, who have a history of social problems, and who are male. It is also reported that 94% of people who smoke more than three cigarettes a day at the beginning become addicted in the long run.

Why do people insist on continuing a behavior they know to be harmful or that they cannot give up easily even if they wish to? There are various reasons for this. First of all, human beings do not only make decisions and act within the control of reason, logic, willpower, and conscience. Cigarettes contain addictive chemicals that stimulate the brain’s pleasure center. Developing an addiction weakens willpower. When individuals realize how dangerous this addiction is, it is mostly too late to give up, since it takes significant willpower. We act not only based on logical information, but on intense feelings, too. Thus, a person continues to smoke in spite of knowing the dangers. A person’s degree of psychological and spiritual “hunger,” the strength of their feelings, and a failure to meet other healthy goals can be contributing factors to an addiction.

The World Health Organization defines dependence syndrome as “a cluster of physiological, behavioral, and cognitive phenomena in which the use of a substance or a class of substances takes on a much higher priority for a given individual than other behaviors that once had greater value.” Considering cigarette dependence, the person may find it really hard to break free from a vicious cycle beginning with thought, gaining velocity with feelings, and ending with the execution of a certain act.

In terms of the human brain and neurotransmitters, smoking causes nicotine to react with nicotine receptors. As a result of long-term nicotine intake, a neuro-adaptation increases the number of nicotine receptors in the brain. The brain develops tolerance to certain effects of nicotine. After a person has become neuro-physiological dependent, they begin to crave nicotine.

The effects of nicotine on the human body depend on the dose and have two aspects. The reduction of nicotine in blood causes symptoms of depravation, and its increase causes symptoms of poisoning. If a person smokes more cigarettes, and has free access to them, the amount required to achieve stimulation grows; their tolerance gets higher. Because nicotine is a psychological and spiritual stimulant, it often gives a feeling of temporary relief, which helps the smoker to forget their problems. This causes the smoker to draw a connection between smoking and a lack of worries, thus further affecting their reasoning and will power. Researches have shown that as the daily number of cigarettes increases, the habit shifts from the critical phase to the supercritical, and that psychological dependence turns into neuro-psychological dependence. 75-80 percent of smokers wish to give up smoking, and one third of dependent smokers attempted to give up smoking at least three times.

Phases of treatment

The purpose in treatment is making the smoker give up the habit in the long run. The first goal is to get the behavior under control by reducing the amount of cigarettes, and then, finally, cutting them out completely. A set of psychological thresholds smokers need to overcome are defined. Each of them is passed by overcoming different psychological and social obstacles.

1. Not being aware of the damage and not taking any steps for change: At this phase, the smoker does not calculate the possible harm of smoking and thus does not wish to give it up. When the subject is mentioned, it is dismissed by means of certain defense mechanisms. Those who wish to help the smoker must know this situation, and they should never engage in a dispute about smoking; by using soft spoken words, they should patiently try to make that person feel the grim realities of smoking.

2. Beginning to think about giving up smoking: At this phase, the person states that he or she will give up smoking whenever the subject is mentioned. The person also expresses being aware of the dangers and being in need of help to give up. However, taking action can sometimes take months, or even years. At this phase, the person should make a self-evaluation for the sake of putting one’s knowledge to real life practice, and to help them face their conscience. Those who wish to give up smoking had better prepare a list of the advantages to not smoking. Sincerity and empathy shown by the person to help the smoker are the most influential help; a single look or word might have an adverse effect and cause a relapse.

3. The preparation: The person is ready to give up smoking. At this phase, it will be useful to prepare a practical plan by benefiting from the tips of those who gave up smoking successfully. The date to give up should be set, preferably a meaningful day for the person, such as a birthday or anniversary. For spiritual support, it can be useful to previously announce the day to give up smoking to the person’s friends and family.

4. Action: The person has quit smoking. Having a small ceremony can be beneficial, as it creates a sense of psychological and social obligation; in the interest of these obligations, it’s important the person receive social support throughout the process. The person should keep away from people and places that make them feel like smoking. Exercise is a good way to combat any urges. When the person feels an urge to smoke, one must take a deep breath, and then release it slowly after holding it for some time. They should know that an intense urge to smoke only lasts for two or three minutes and soon subsides.

5. Continuing the newly acquired good behavior: At this phase, the person must be resolved not to relapse. At this point, the issue depends on the person’s freewill. It will be useful to reward ones’ self for not having started again. One of the most important components of treatment is helping the smoker develop proper interests and hobbies so that they are not tempted to start smoking again. Others around the person can provide positive psychological support. It is narrated that one drunken man came to visit Rumi, but his disciples tried to get rid of him with harsh treatment. On seeing this, Rumi remarked: “He drank the toxicant, but you have become intoxicated.” In the same way, we must also act with magnanimity, tolerance, and a feeling of responsibility to save our friends from such a dangerous habit.

Smoking is a habit that can be given up and treated

Is it a wise strategy to give up smoking all of a sudden? Is it possible? Is it advised to give it up gradually? Answers to these questions differ from patient to patient. First and foremost, giving up smoking depends on the person’s own wish, resolution, and willpower. It is possible to give up this habit. According to the WHO, treating smokers are among a doctor’s duties. It is known that as a consequence of anti-smoking campaigns and activities, millions of people gave up smoking. As the average rate of success remains under 10% for those who receive no help, we need to provide as much support as possible and encourage people to be healthy.

None of the methods for giving up smoking are 100% successful on their own. The best results are obtained when medical treatment supports the psychological, mental, and spiritual processes. Medical treatment include symptomatic treatments that target the feeling of deprivation that arise after giving up smoking and using other drugs to lessen the wish to smoke.

References

• Heatherton, Todd F. et al. 1991. “The Fagerström Test for Nicotine Dependence: a revision of the Fagerström Tolerance Questionnaire.” British Journal of Addiction 86:1119-1127.
• JC Norcross, Krebs PM, Proschaska JO. 2011. “Stages of Change.” J. Clin. Psychol. Feb. 67 (2):143-54.
• World Health Organization http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs310/en/index.html. Accessed March 9, 2013.

Day 1: I have finally decided to make some changes in myself. For a long time, I have been troubled about my social and spiritual life. I have been losing sincerity in my relationship with God and my relationships with other people because of the same problem-gossiping. I have spent, actually wasted, too much time talking behind people’s backs. What is more, after doing that, I feel obliged to act “nice” to those people about whom I gossiped. This double-dealing lifestyle has lowered my self-esteem day by day. But, to me, the worst result of this habit has been its damage to the relationship between me and God. In the Qur’an, God asks backbiters, “Would any of you love to eat the flesh of his dead brother?” Then He warns us, “Keep from disobedience to God in reverence for Him and piety” (49:12). Nevertheless, I have been gossiping at the expense of incurring the Wrath of God! Clearly, I need to do something to avoid reaping all these negative consequences in my life.

Day 2: Even though I have decided to eliminate my gossiping behavior, still I need to define “gossiping” as clearly and specifically as I can. In other words, I need to have an operational definition for the behavior; then I will know its limits, which acts or words constitute gossiping; and I will be able to observe and measure it. Here is my definition of “gossiping”: when a person is not present, saying, mimicking or listening to anything about him or her which would make him or her sad, angry or offended if he or she were to hear it, even if what is said is true. My goal is to eliminate gossiping by decreasing the time and frequency of my gossiping. In order to know whether or not I have accomplished my goal, I need to collect baseline data, that means, how long and how frequently I am presently gossiping when I do not take any action to stop myself. If I know this, then I can measure the effectiveness of my remedies. For this reason, I made a timetable to collect my data each day, by recording my gossiping time in minutes and my gossiping frequency as the number of times I gossiped.

Day 3: Today I decided to use the ABC model as a behavioral modification method because this model has been used to change various negative behaviors, such as anxiety and weight gain, and because its effectiveness has been demonstrated in many studies. In this model, A refers to antecedents, which mean everything that triggers the behavior; B refers to behavior, which means the behavior that is to be changed; and C refers to consequence, which means the results of the behavior, be they positive or negative. These three components directly influence our behaviors; therefore, if I intend to modify one of them, I will need to take all three into account, and shape my plan and determine my steps accordingly. Hence, while I am observing myself, I am also going to observe my ABCs and record them.

Day 4: Today I thought about the short- and long-term advantages and disadvantages of my decision. In the short term, since I will feel more honest in my relations with others, I will be more comfortable when interacting with them; however, since I won’t be able to tell them what I am really thinking at the time, I will probably feel tense, and it will be hard for me to keep what I think inside me. In the long term, since my main reason for stopping gossiping is to be a better person, a “vessel of love,” just as God wants a good believer to become, I will be progressing on a road on which servants become worthy of forgiveness and mercy. Besides this, my self-esteem, which has been lowered due to my two-facedness, will be reinstated. When I think about the consequences of behavior modification this way, I realize that success in my goal will be a very lucrative trade.

Day 7: I am still keeping records of my gossiping behavior and its antecedents and consequences. When I checked my baseline data, I was absolutely shocked. I had not known that I had been wasting so much time gossiping. I realized that whenever my friends and I get together for any kind of reason, or when people do or say something to me that makes me sad or angry, or when I see somebody whom I really do not like, I begin to judge or criticize those people and talk about them behind their backs. Now I have decided I need to block the antecedents to gossiping, so that I can reduce the length and frequency of my undesirable behavior.

Day 8: I have identified two important antecedents that trigger my undesirable behavior. First, whenever I become sad or angry at somebody, I look for somebody else, usually my friends, to talk to about the situation that has made me feel bad. By the end of the conversation, we always find ourselves gossiping. Since it is not always possible to avoid gossiping once in a conversation, only one thing remains in my hands: to refrain from looking for somebody to talk to. Keeping this in mind, I have asked all of my friends to warn me when I begin to gossip; also I have decided to distract myself when I am angry by leaving our home, walking along the bayou or doing any kind of diversionary activity until I calm down and can control what I tell my friends. In this way, I hope to break the chain of antecedents which directly leads me to talk behind people’s backs.

Day 11: Today I woefully admit that this preventative measure has not been helpful enough so far, even though it seems to work a little bit at first. I need to use some new antecedents to reduce my gossiping behavior. First of all, I will eliminate negative self-statements, such as, “It is beyond my power. I cannot stop it.” Instead, I will start giving myself positive instructions which remind me of my long-term goal and how capable I am of achieving it. In addition, I will try to replace my negative thoughts about other people with positive ones, so that I can lessen my anger, which is the first ring in my chain of antecedents. I hope that these measures will work.

Day 15: It seems that I am getting the show on the road at last, even though I still have not been able reach my goal, the zero point. I think I need to do something about my Bs. According to scholars, it is best to develop a new desirable behavior, rather than to merely suppress an old one. Hence, I need to choose a new behavior which corresponds to my initial goal. This new behavior should be incompatible with my undesirable behavior. To combat my bad habit, I have decided now to state at least three positive things about the people about whom I gossip-per gossiping session. In addition to this, I am going to try to stop my friends as well when they begin to gossip.

Day 17: Before I set to work on this, I knew that changing my habits would be difficult and stressful; however, I had no idea how nerve-wracking it would really be. These days, I am always trying to keep myself under control, to distract myself, and to clamp the lid on talking as I desire. By the end of the day, I find that I become really exhausted and tense. While I was looking for a solution to this situation, I realized that I already have the key: meditation, which is a great way of combating physical and mental stress. Actually, my regular, daily prayers, which come five times a day, provide golden opportunities for me to meditate and relax. When praying, I can both concentrate fully on my prayers, gaining strength in my relationship with my Lord, and also, I hope, decrease my stress level.

Day 19: As I guessed, my prayers are really helping me to feel calmer and more peaceful. Today I decided to try an additional relaxation method called “imagined rehearsal.” Basically, it is a combination of breathing, muscular relaxation and desensitization techniques. First, I tried to control the muscles of my body, from my head to my toe, by tensing and relaxing them intentionally. The next step was to do imaginary rehearsals of the situations that tempt me to gossip. I imagined a situation in my daily life in which somebody was acting in a way that drives me crazy; and I imagined my behavior in complete, minute detail-that I was controlling myself so I kept my mouth shut and even saying something positive about her. This simulation made me really tense and nervous, but then, I relaxed by using the relaxation method that I practiced before. Then I did the same rehearsal again and again until I became desensitized to the situation. Now I feel that if I really face the same situation, I will feel more comfortable and be able to control my reaction easily.

Day 22: Finally, it seems that it is time to harvest my grapes. According to my records, even though sometimes I have some relapses, my gossiping frequency and time is lessening. At least, I have never returned to my baseline level. I never expected to wave a magic wand and have my bad habit disappear immediately. Still, I need to reach a more stable condition and, of course, zero point, if it is possible. Even though two hopes-gaining the pleasure of God and lightening the burden of my transgressions against the rights of others-have motivated me to quit my undesirable behavior, I feel I need some more immediate, tangible motivators. I have decided to introduce some positive reinforcements into my environment, to be had whenever I do something worthy. But I have not defined the procedure yet.

Day 23: I have thought about my reinforcement procedure, and finally, I have given it shape. First, I am not going to use either positive or negative reinforcements alone. Punishment, in particular, is a temporary solution and only motivates one to avoid a certain behavior. It cannot provide me motivation to gain a new, desirable behavior. Also, punishment can sometimes cause relapses, which are usually worse than the old behavior pattern. Therefore, I am going to utilize a positive reinforcement system; and only if I need it, am I going to apply negative punishment to myself, by withdrawing some desirable things from my environment, (rather than positive punishment, whereby undesirable things are introduced into the environment). I am going to use a token system for my reinforcement process. Each time I make positive statements about others, I will gain 1 token; each time I successfully refrain from talking behind people’s backs, I will gain 2 tokens; and if I gossip, I will lose 2 of the tokens which I have already earned. I have made a list of the things or activities which would be reinforcement for me, and I have given each of them a value. For example, a cup of fruppachino costs 10 tokens, and each minute of my favorite TV show costs a token; so, for a 40 minute show I need to collect 40 tokens.

Day 26: I have finally got used to the token system, and it has started to work. I am really working hard and always keeping my token account in mind, especially since I missed this week’s episode of my favorite show-a miserable situation! Also, my friends have realized how determinedly I have been working on my no-more-gossip project. They have started to help me by warning me as soon as I open my mouth-because they knew what comes next-and by praising me when I put positive thoughts into words despite all my fury at the person involved. Actually, I am being reinforced verbally by my considerate friends; my motivators are doubled right now. Moreover, my friends are now also watching their own attitudes and behaviors to help me in the process, which makes me feel like I am in seventh heaven. In fact, my motivators are tripled.

Day 31: Only one day after I began to thank God that my troubles with gossiping were finally all over, I lapsed and gossiped. Actually, these lapses have occurred throughout the modification process and have sometimes pushed me to the brink of despair, just as the lapse today did. Sometimes other people have discouraged my use of these methods, and sometimes I have even discouraged myself by not believing that the techniques would help me or that I could attain my goal. Also, since I have been trying to resist the temptation to gossip for long time, constant self-control has fatigued me. In times of great fatigue, the only anchor for me has been my prayers and my appeals to God for patience and power. I have always tried to bear in my mind that I am doing this only for the good pleasure of God. I have kept on doing my imagined rehearsal, not only to relax, but also to remind myself of my long-term goal and reward, and to motivate myself when I am burnt out. Also, I have tried to remain in a positive mood in order to avoid hopelessness. I have tried to increase my coping and problem-solving skills, and used them actively whenever I needed to. Thankfully, all these efforts have prevented my lapses from becoming relapses, and it really has worked. When I look back, I see that I have covered ground and that I am almost done. The next goal for me now is to preserve the new behavior pattern as a habit, so that even as time passes, my new habit will be protected.

Day 35: Since I have reached my goal, I am terminating my project today; but it doesn’t mean that I am giving up everything. On the contrary, since I want to maintain the habit of not gossiping for a lifetime, I am going to carry on keeping records for a while, and reinforce the behavior with external motivators until it becomes stable. Then, in order to make my new habit even stronger, I am going to change my reinforcing procedure to intermittent reinforcing by using a variable-ratio schedule, which means that I will gain reinforcements in a variable ratio. For example, sometimes a frappuccino will be worth 7 tokens, and sometimes 10 tokens. After my reactions start occuring automatically, I will no longer need to reward myself or expect external motivation from others. Besides, I think that if I increase my participation in beneficial activities and forms of socializing, I will be so busy I will not even want to waste my time gossiping anymore. I have decided to be a better-organized person and to spend more time participating in beneficial activities, such as voluntary service. Hopefully, I will have a satisfied mind and better fulfill my duty as a servant of God.

Acknowledgment: During the modification process, I benefited from David L. Watson and Roland G. Tharp’s book, Self-Directed Behavior. I greatly appreciate all their helpful information and methods.

Sumeyra Tosun is completing her Master’s degree on criminal psychology in Houston, Texas.

In describing how an effective person should concentrate his or her efforts in the right jungle, Covey uses the concept of mission, a term from the study of management of long-term business strategy meaning a statement of a company’s vision of what it intends to do and become. In the context of this book, Covey urges people to come up with personal mission statements. The objective-setting criteria used in making such statements should be based on long-term, changeless, and established rules. By way of example, the author points out the United States Constitution which has remained unchanged in its fundamentals for over two hundred years. Human nature requires a changeless inner core for people to be effective – it is much easier to hit a stable target than a moving one. (This might be one among many reasons why the Divine revelations (of which the Qur’an is the last) were sent down to guide mankind for centuries.)

The book is divided into four parts. The first part deals with personal mission or in the author’s words principle-centred paradigm. He uses the term paradigm to mean a model, perception, assumption, or frame of reference. Paradigms are powerful because they constitute the lens through which we see the world. The principle-centred paradigm is based on the idea that there are principles or natural laws that govern human effectiveness which he calls GANLs or Generally Accepted Natural Laws. These laws are just as real and stable as the law of gravity in the physical world. They are guidelines for human conduct that are proven to have enduring, even permanent and fundamental value, such as fairness, integrity, honesty, human dignity, service, quality, etc. He says that the more closely the principle-centred paradigms are aligned with the GANLs, the more accurate and functional they will become. What he does not explicitly conclude in this part is the origin of the GANLs. Although the manifestation or definition of the GANLs is said to be left to the reader, one who ponders on the author’s approach and style will easily understand that he implies Divine revelation as the origin. In several instances throughout his book, Covey implicitly justifies the teachings of the Divine revelations which are fundamentally from the same Source in the different monotheistic religions. One who has a sound background in Islam, for example, would easily recognize the similarities. Covey explains himself somewhat at the end of the book under the rubric of A Personal Note. It is interesting to learn that the GANLs or fundamental, universal and intangible rules of social interactions can be justified by reasoning (as realized by Covey in his book) and these are welcomed by people who are hungry for ethics and a restoration of character in their lives.

The other parts of the book explain the 7 habits referred to in the title. They are, in the order the author prefers:

1. Be proactive,
2. Begin with end [i.e. your objective] in mind,
3. Put first things first,
4. Think win/win,
5. Seek first to understand, then to be understood,
6. Synergize,
7. Sharpen the saw, or self-renewal.

Covey concentrates on the first three habits in Part 11. Successful accomplishment of Habits I, II and III is called by the author ‘a Private Victory’. Habit I (being proactive) is recommended as the basic principle of the nature of effective man. Proactive people are driven by values – carefully thought about, selected and internalized principles – rather than by external circumstances and conditions, which characterizes reactive people. Proactive people take the initiative to act in accordance with their paradigms in their circle of concerns through the means that they can be influential with. He states that the very essence of developing proactivity is to make and keep commitments to ourselves and to set a goal and work to achieve it. Another interesting observation in this section is that proactive people focus their time and energy on things that they can do something about (Circle of Influence) whereas reactive people concentrate their efforts on things over which they have no control. The degree of proactivity is then determined by how much effort we expend on our Circle of Influence.

Covey has in fact – not surprisingly, seeing that he is an adjunct-professor at the School of Management – applied organizational success theories found in management literature to the ‘management’ of individual lives. In conformity with an academic text-book style, he lists application suggestions at the end of each chapter inviting the reader to put the preceding material into real life by doing the ‘exercises’.

The introduction to Habit II (begin with end in mind) is dramatic: it invites the reader to visualize his/her death. Explaining that it is possible to be very busy without being very effective (active in the wrong jungle), the author goes on:

‘The most fundamental application of “begin with end in mind” is to begin today with the image, picture, or paradigm at the end of your life as your frame of reference or the criterion by which everything else is examined…

To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination. It means to know-where you are going so that you better understand where you are now and so that the steps you take are always in the right direction.’

Covey then lists some motivational factors or ‘centres of life’ that a person might have, such as spouse, family, money, work, possession, pleasure, friend/enemy, etc. For instance, one extremely common centre to most people’s lives is making money. This kind of people are always vulnerable to anything that threatens their economic security. After logically showing inner dimensions of each possible centre, he encourages centring our lives on timeless, unchanging principles so as to reach a fundamental paradigm of effective living. The method he suggests to make this shift is the visualization of one’s own funeral which expands one’s perspective. The analogy with the practice in most major religious traditions, not least in Islam, of meditating on the end of one’s life hardly needs to be pointed out.

Habit III of Private Victory (put first things first), concerned with organizing and executing priorities, is developed from the most recent time management techniques.

People with proactive attitudes can easily focus on important but not urgent activities which is the heart of effective personal management. Reactive people, on the other hand, exhaust their energies on crises, pressing problems and deadline-driven projects, which are the main obstacles to managing one’s time and energy properly.

Part III introduces the habits of Public Victory. People armed with Private Victory habits move from a state of dependence to a state of independence. It is the Habits IV, V and VI which convert one’s state from independence to interdependence and which leads to optimum co-operative-ness, teamwork and communication among members of groups or organizations. The author’s diligent explanation of Emotional Bank Account, described as the amount of trust that has been built up in a relationship, brings up a new perspective to intra-community GANLs for a healthy organization or group. Understanding the individual, attending to the little things, keeping commitments, clarifying expectations, avoiding gossip, defending those who are absent, etc., are just some of the ‘deposits’ to this account needed to achieve sincere and profound relations within an organization.

Habit IV lays the foundation of human interactions that should be carried out through mutually beneficial and satisfying agreements or solutions. Win/Win in this sense recognizes life as a co-operative not a competitive arena. Win/Lose manner of thinking, the most common among people, is fundamentally flawed. Covey argues that people with abundance mentality (the approach that there is plenty out there for everybody) think Win/Win, whereas those with scarcity mentality (the approach that there is only one pie out there) think Win/Lose. The author touches upon a very fundamental law for success in this life, both materially and spiritually: good faith or intention. Good faith is praised by religions over actions and all present man-made laws recognize the concept of bona fide (in good faith) arrangements. People with good faith always think and act Win/Win and they will always be the winners in the end.

Habit V (seek first to understand, then to be understood) is, according to the author, the single most important principle in the field of interpersonal communication and relations. As he does throughout his book, he cites real world examples from his own experiences to show that when one presents one’s own ideas clearly, specifically, visually, and most important, contextually – in the context of a deep understanding of the other party’s paradigms and concerns – one significantly increases the credibility of those ideas and the effectiveness of the interaction.

Habit VI (synergize) is simply defined by the author to mean that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. He makes an analogy between ecology in physical nature and synergism in the nature of human interaction – everything is related to everything else. The essence of synergy in a group or organization is to value the differences, to respect them,to build on strengths, and to compensate for weaknesses. Covey points out that the more genuine the involvement, the more sincere and sustained the participation of individuals in analyzing and solving their shared problems. He also claims that it is this synergy that has led to the Japanese success in business.

Habit VII (sharpen the saw or self renewal) is the renewing of the following four dimensions of human nature: physical (exercise, nutrition, stress management), spiritual (value clarification and commitment, study and meditation), mental (reading, visualizing, planning, writing) and social/emotional (service, empathy, synergy).

This book reveals the recent global trend to inspire and motivate people for ethics and restoration of character in personal and professional lives. Rather than trying to provide a short-term, quick solution for the problem, Covey tries to concentrate on the fundamental questions of who we are, where we are coming from and where we are headed to. From a different perspective, the author proves, justifies and elaborates the necessity of complying with the natural laws, of which the source, as he implies at the end of his book is the Creator.

This review has touched only lightly on the similarities between the author’s conclusions and the paradigm prescribed by the last Divine religion revealed fourteen centuries ago. Alert readers of the book with moderate and informed Islamic background will easily identify many more similarities and indeed specific correspondences in the texts of Qur’an and Hadith. The general point worth making is that a contemporary explanation of the universal and fundamental principles revealed centuries ago can still make a big impact on people’s lives even in the countries where religion has long been neglected:

Covey’s book has been a bestseller. This indicates that proper presentation of Divine principles in the modern world by word and example is welcomed and can encourage and motivate people, through a different path and approach, to revive their lifestyles in the light of true, sound, changeless and inspiring Divine principles.