Understandable from Age 13! The 7 Habits: Lessons to Change Yourself

Since I quit my job, I've been spending more time talking with my mother. While the background is that she is elderly, lives alone, and requires care, it is also interesting to observe 'what it means to age' up close.

I wonder if it's appropriate to use my own mother as a subject, but if the actions she takes are unique to the elderly, I believe understanding them will be useful for my own future.

In the first place, there are so many unreasonable actions that if I face them head-on, I get too frustrated, so I'm playing a thought game of exploring behavioral psychology objectively.

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My mother's catchphrase:
'I'm busy every day, chased by things I have to do, and I can't start anything new.'

Until now, I interpreted this as just an excuse to cover up her own incompetence. The number of things one has to do in a day is limited, and they are all easy tasks. I wondered why she developed such a catchphrase.

By spending the whole day with my mother, I've come to understand something.

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I tried dividing my mother's actions into 'things that can be changed by one's own actions' and 'things that cannot be changed.'

Then, I found that the majority of her day was occupied by 'things that cannot be changed.' That is, information flowing from the news. In other words, the weather, celebrity gossip, sports results, the declining birthrate, the economic downturn, incidents, accidents, and so on.

After all, even if you want tomorrow's weather to be sunny, you can't change it, and
even if your favorite team loses, the decision won't change.
An accident that has already happened won't disappear, and
the declining birthrate is not something that can be solved by one person's power.
(Come to think of it, I have that tendency myself...)

'Things that can be changed by one's own actions' are:
doing and hanging out the laundry,
cooking meals,
cleaning,
watering the flowers.
That's about it. A workload that can be finished in 1-2 hours.

No matter how you look at it, she doesn't seem busy.

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Here, I thought of the 'Circle of Concern and Circle of Influence.'
A famous diagram that appears in The 7 Habits.

So, I tried talking to my mother about it.
I told her I think a proactive way of living is good.

It seemed to resonate more than I expected, and she was very convinced. Changing behavior will likely be very difficult, but if you understand it in your head, it should be easier for changes to occur.

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Hearing that, my mother asked her own son (me):

'Why are you able to express what you're thinking in your head to others in an easy-to-understand way using words and diagrams?' I answered that question while self-analyzing how such a twisted and argumentative son could be born from a mother whose head is in the clouds.

"I'm just reading a book," I answered simply.
And that book was "The 7 Habits."

To my curious mother, I immediately ordered the easiest-looking version on Amazon: "Understandable from Age 13: The 7 Habits - Lessons to Change Yourself."

It explains things using simple words and easy-to-understand examples. It is the perfect book to serve as a life bible. The original "7 Habits" is thick and has small print, which can be intimidating, so I'm glad I bought the simplified version.

More than half a year has passed since that conversation.
Unfortunately, there has been no change in my mother's behavioral patterns...

I wonder if I'll end up like this someday too.

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Published book → https://amzn.to/4czN51O