Making The Right Effort: A Step To Achieving Our Dreams

Improving the quality of our life as human persons may be just another phenomena of our human existence because of the intricacy that is often infused with making a qualitative living. There is a distinction between doing too much, trying so hard and investing just the right quantity of human energy, intelligence, Will and purpose. Most often than not we aren't fully conscious of the choices we're making and their long term effects on the quality of our life.

Many people often say "I work so hard but what have I got to show for it? I'm mostly exhausted and can't even find the time to do some of the things I desire or even find pleasurable in the slightest". Well it's our most common challenge as a productive human entity. All we've got to show is that we're happy and nothing less. In life we're availed many options and that sometimes may pose a challenge for those who want all of it rather than one of it that really counts. You take a look around and you might notice a person having several acquaintances that they often call friends. Truth be told, they don't know the half about the persons they call friends and sometimes they don't even like more than half of them. A good example is Valerie. Valerie is a hard working and outgoing individual who loves to have people around and enjoy the company of others. Recently Valeria asked to meet up with me and I was a little bit concerned because whenever we have such impromptu meetings, it just happens to be just another meltdown of hers. The meetings are a forum for Valerie to vent her frustration about what I like to call longterm-human-investment popularly known as friendship. Valerie says "I'm really sorry I had to come on such short notice but it's been really disconcerting these last few days. I just can't understand it, you know, why people are the way they are. I work so hard in maintaining my friendships, I try to keep in touch with my friends, spend tons of money making phone calls and travelling to see these people and spending several hours online replying emails and updating my status so that my friends know what I've been up to. I call them on their birthdays and even send them gifts. But the worst thing about it all is when I need them to meet up or just hang out they don't make out the time. I go all the way and they won't. It's so unfair. I sometimes bump into them at parties yet they tell me that they are with people and act as though I mean nothing to them. It's just so unfair. What are my doing wrong? Is it such a bad thing to be a nice person?" Valerie's questions were endless. It was such a sad sight because Valerie is indeed putting in a lot of effort in order to be a nice friend, but shouldn't it be fun as opposed to tiresome? Should it sound like a bestfriend contest? Who's the best friend of them all? So to cut the chase, I said to Valerie that she was indeed doing many things wrong. First of all Valerie has over three thousand friends on her different social networking pages including myspace, facebook, hi5 and nazsa Klasa. How's that truly manageable? She maintains contact with all these people who she calls friends whereas they are mostly acquaintances, people who she got to meet by chance or through highschool and university or someplace else then exchanged contacts. The fact is there is a broad distinction between a friend and an acquaintance. The former being a person attached to another by a feeling of affection and regard; of two or more people who like eachother and sometimes even love eachother. Persons who enjoy spending time together. A person who warms your heart with their presence and viceversa. The definition of a friend could go on and on. Now the latter acquaintance is a person who is merely known as a result of knowledge or shared experience, like someone you meet at a bar, your class mate who all you know is about their academic experience; a limited knowledge of a person that is not of friendship. An acquaintance isn't a friend no matter how nice we are. Valerie has eighty percent of acuaintances and twenty percent of friends which is a really positive thing to experience if you're allocating your time appropriately. The problem is that Valerie should be investing her time and energy into the twenty percent of the friends she has as opposed to the acquaintances. Her true friends who care about her should be those she should be wanting to spend time with, those she should be calling and travelling to visit. These are the people she should hold allegiance to as they would do the same for her then it won't feel like a hassle. The reason Valerie feels the strain in her relations with others is that the efforts are misplaced. She's putting in so much work but in the wrong places. Valerie has to redirect her focus and energy on those who actually like her and who she really likes and then it won't feel like so much work. Having a circle of friends who you love and who love you shouldn't be stressful but delightful. If it becimes a strain then something is wrong somewhere and it should be redressed as quickly as possible.

In the human department of our life, there will always be emerging challenges yet they should teach us to appreciate our life even more. Nowadays we spend several hours at work or school much more than we spend in our personal life. Many people suffer burn out which is as a result of prolonged stress or intense situation. Often people complain that life is tough whereas the really tough issue is their work life. Many have jobs they detest and can't stand and the thought of work sends them into a state of anxiety or repression, some have coworkers that they find unbecoming and they have to work with this person or persons on a daily basis.
Not too long ago I had a meeting with an acquaintance who is also my client. She constantly complains about the difficulty of her job and one day I asked her what she would rather do. She thought for a while and couldn't find an answer. She further expressed that the problem wasn't only her job description but also her colleagues. She talked about office politics and coworkes trying to advance in their careers at the expense of others. After listening to her, she asked me what she should do. I thought deeply and told her that first of all she had to find out what she truly loves doing. What she could do for several hours a day that would be better than what she's doing currently at her present job. I let her know that the stress of her job is taking it's toll on everyone she loves including her partner and friend and sooner or later no one would be there to listen to her constant complains about work. She could either find a job she would enjoy, maybe not her dream job as she doesn't know what exactly she would like to to. She should certainly find a job that provides a better atmostphere than the one she has at the moment. She should also invest some effort into having a cordial relationship with her coworkers or colleagues as they are who she spends seventy percent of her daily time with. I told her not to quit her job until she's tried the various alternatives available including speaking earnestly and respectfully to her coworkers one to one about the concerns she has, re-evaluating her working conditions to find out ways she may improve them if possible by consulting with human resources services and finally to decide not to be the victim in the situation and take responsibility by consciously doing something to improve the situation. Making the right effort does count especially when we know what we want to achieve.

We all hear people complain about being single and not finding the right person for them,or not meeting their soulmate. I get that a lot. It's like a modern trend and the subject of discussion on internet forums and the reason for the hike in multiple social networking sites promising love and happiness via online dating. Even reality shows are based on this common theme. Sometimes people spend lots of time and energy paying for memberships on online profiles or spending time in chatrooms. A former classmate of mine complained about finding it hard to meet someone online. I took a look at his many profiles and realised that it would be hard to meet anyone with his values based on the information he's put out there. First of all his profile had very little character, he's an incredibly intelligent and creative guy but you don't get that idea from reading his profile. His profile pictures don't show what an athletic person he is or how he loves to spend his free time. His targeted audience seemed to be vague, it seemed the guy wasn't really interested in much. I pointed out his misses and told him that if only he would concentrate on two or three profiles on the internet and constantly update his pages with information that truly reflects his character and the character he is looking for then he would be much closer to his goal. Sometimes less is more.

In relationships, marriage is often called the bedrock of a home. Study shows that many people are more concerned with the idea of marriage rather than the substance of it. Marriage is not a merry go round ride as many think. It requires a good amount of the right effort like many good things such as our careers, dreams, interest or friendships. Marriage is as important as all of these things even more and it starts from pre-marriage times. Often couples during their courtship forget to discuss certain crucial aspects of marriage before committing to it and that's the reason there are many unhappy married couples or couples-on-the-verge-of-a-divorce. Subject matters such as what truly makes you happy? what makes you sad? what is your idea of being a parent? how should we parent our child if we decide to have them, how many? what is your notion on parents-in-law? and how are we going to spend our holidays? Bearing in mind these questions is actually a step ahead in making the right effort to make a marriage work, speaking about fidelity and forgiveness, about communication and the need to feel love is a concern for many couples but they are shy to discuss it with their partners before and during marriage. A friend of mine kate and I were conversing and she told me that she would like to hear her husband tell her that he loves her. She quickly added that she knew that he must love her but that she would like to hear it. I asked her how it felt for her not to hear those words and she simply said, "nervous, it makes me feel insecure, it might sound silly but it's true. Sometimes I want to hear it so badly I cry". Well Kate isn't alone in this as many women and men but mostly women would like to hear their partners say these words. I told my friend Kate that what she felt was a regular concern and she shouldn't be ashamed of it however she needs to communicate her thoughts to her husband. It's what communication is all about especially in a marriage. You need to say anything and everything to the one you love and have vowed committment to without any reservation. If you can't say it to him or her, then to whom? She was adamant about not talking to him about it. She maintained that he should know this already. I soon realised that there was a lack of communication on her part as well. Little things like this is what strains a marriage because couples won't discuss things such as telling their spouses they didn't like it when they were flirting because it made them jealous or talking about sharing the house work so that they both have equal responsibility or talking to their spouses about certain behavioural tendencies that a partner might exhibit. Many couples actually seperate because of housework. One female divorcee said it made her feel she was going crazy when she had to make dinner every night and weekends for the so many years she was married and not once did her husband offer to make dinner even when he got home first. She said she got home one day and just couldn't take it anymore. This situation is true for many, another woman said she hated spending her holidays in the mountains or countryside but that she was hoping her husband would notice she wasn't enjoying herself and offered to go someplace else but he didn't. Unfortunately these men were caught up in their own world but a two way communication would have been the solution. The men should have asked the women what they would really like to do and how the housework or child rearing should be executed and the women should have offered to talk about their dissatisfaction with their everyday routine but neither did. Either parties could have saved the day by just having a candid-reality-check-conversation . It's important to note that you should be able to talk about anything with your partner. That should be one of the basis of committing to each other. My answer to my friend Kate was, if you want to be a happier wife you had better start communicating your inner core concerns to your husband or you might expect the worse in the longterm.

All it really takes for our lives to improve could be simply re-evaluating our choices and making sure that it's the right ones we're making. Looking carefully at our situation and asking ourself how we can improve it and then invest time and energy and sometimes resoures to make sure it happens for us. Many people are unable to live their dreams because they fail to take the appropriate steps in making this come true. Some people are unhappy because they are doing all the wrong things or doings the right things in the wrong way which only negates the possibility of a productive outcome. Sometimes all we need is to step back and observe the situation, think it clearly and then come up with a step to step plan in getting what we want. A simple analogy is going to the store to buy a pair of jeans. We could end up going to several stores but won't find the right pair yet we've exhausted resources in so doing. What we should really be doing is finding out exactly the pair of jeans we need, where exactly we could get such pairs, find out the cost of such items and formulate the "how and right" strategy and tactics to get it. This way we would be sure to get that pair of jeans because we're conscious of how to get it. A little self-awareness and responsibility goes a long way.

Making the right effort is all it really takes to be closer to what we want to achieve in life be it in relationships, career, family, parenting and matters of the heart.

By,

K.C Nwokoye.