My friend Olivier Blanchard posted this quote on Facebook the other day:

That’s a beautiful quote. And in case you’re wondering, the real application of this quote is not in you feeling superior to all those fools who revere their chains. It’s in figuring out what chains YOU revere.

We often really love the things that hold us back, even if we sometimes don’t realize it or admit it. As much as we like to complain about email and how it keeps us from doing what’s important, we all still spend lots of time checking our email inbox. In many cases, I think we actually like it. We like feeling busy, even if we know it’s taking us backwards.

Much of what we call “management” could probably fall in this category too. Let’s start making it easy on everyone and shed our own chains.