CONNECTING WITH PEOPLE

Getting involved with strangers sometimes could be tedious and sometimes rewarding depending on one’s disposition with life. From experience, some relationships that started casually have ended up bringing the parties involved into fortunes that have transformed their lives. Let’s look at the story of a friend, Adetoun (not real name) who had a chance meeting with a state governor in company of his friend and in the course of interaction, the governor was able to link Adetoun with a life changing job opportunity in a bank and years after, became the better for it.

The Governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Raji Fashola, is said to be a living example of how to connect with people. According to his story, it was a chance meeting with the ex-governor of the state, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and his decision to stay connected with the man eventually paid up when in the later years, Tinubu became the Governor of Lagos and chose Fashola as his Chief of Staff thereby opening an opportunity to become the state governor years later.

There was another story I read in a national newspaper, about a boy who came from his village in search of greener pasture in Lagos and on arrival, he met a total stranger who posed as a Good Samaritan offering a helping hand. By the time he could realise it, the village boy was introduced to an armed robbery gang, which changed the course of his life and eventually he got killed in a gun battle with the Police during a robbery operation.

Relationship has a way of leading one to either prosperity or poverty, depending on what side of the divide you find yourself.

So the act of building a relationship or connecting with people should be seen as critical to one’s survival in life. Admittedly, that you do not have a choice of who is your father, mother or siblings. You cannot determine which country you will be born either, but definitely, you have the prerogative to choose who your friends are, who becomes your close ally in life and even the kind of neighbourhood to live in. You also have the right to determine who you will love to live the rest of your life with.

“The quality of your life is the quality of your relationships.”
-Anthony Robbins

The basic rule to be adopted here should be how you could ensure that you are in the right relationship at all times. Whether you like it or not, there is a correlation between your success in life and the kind of relationship you keep. So the need to ensure that you explore the right relationship to build enough goodwill for yourself at all time is imperative to your choice of a relationship. The quality of relationship you build could ensure the quality of life you live, so make sure that at every point in your life, you consciously take decisions that will bring you close to the right people. And if per chance you found yourself within a circle that fall below your defined standard, take a quick step to discontinue such and move ahead with your life. 

* This is an except from my forth coming book; Living an Enduring Lifestyle

BREAKAWAY FROM THE UGLY PAST

One of the main sources of anger in relationship often times is the inability of one partner to let go of the past hurts and disappointments, and focus on the present task at hands. A number of people carry on with life with loads of baggage from their past relationship or personal experience which often serves as barrier that could hinder their life’s progression.

A victim of rape, for instance who continue to see her husband or every other man in the same light with the rapist will surely not be able to adjust quickly to the need to satisfy her husband conjugal need and enjoy the full benefits of marriage. Her attitude if not properly control could cost her the joy of the marriage and even lead to its early collapse. Trusting another man enough to commit her life to him would definitely be a difficult task because of the constant intrusion of the bad memory of her unfortunate encounter in the past.

I once listened to a radio programme where a lady who was a victim of sexual abuse was seeking advice on air on how to overcome her phobia for men. According to her story, she has been married for three years, yet each time her husband wants sex, the memory of the past abuse she had suffered in the hands of some men keep intruding and all she feels and sees is her abuser rather than her husband making love to her. “I couldn’t help but cry each time my husband tries to make love to me because my past always rush back and make me feel the same way I used to feel when I was being abused,” the lady told the producer of the radio programme. “My husband never likes this and the situation is getting critical for me because I cannot bring myself to tell him the truth about my past and yet we have never enjoyed sex together as couple because of the way I feel and react to him each time he makes a move.”

This lady’s past has remained the greatest threat to her present and even the future because she has not been able to deal with it and put her experience behind her. Unfortunately, according to her story, the marriage has not been able to produce a child, partly because of her attitude to sex and other undisclosed factor. She said a series of test have been carried out on her and the husband, but nothing was found to be wrong with them medically.

The first major step such person should have taken before entering into any relationship or marriage is to purge herself of any bitterness and let go of the hatred toward her violator. Though, forgiveness can be very difficult, but that is the surest way to go in achieving healing from the past hurts and moving forward toward the next stage of life, otherwise one’s life purpose could be abridged with such deep seated bitterness that is asking for revenge all the time.

Same goes for someone who still holds on to past guilt, offence or mistakes. For us to develop a winning attitude, we need to break away from the past, focus on the future and learn to forgive ourselves where necessary and make amend otherwise, the past could constitute major blockage to our present and the future.

CHECK YOUR IGNORANCE GUAGE

It baffles me sometimes to see many people carry on in life with a wrong approach; believing they have the monopoly of knowledge and the key to open all the locks of wisdom. A lot of people are in such category today, thinking that life can only be view from the prism of their understanding of issues, while any other observation contrary to theirs is warped and out of order.

What will you do if later in life you discover that all your notions and belief about life are nothing but a wind? Life can be better lived and enjoy if only we could be open to learning and take a little patience to seek alternative views to ours.

In my sojourn so far in this life, I have seen a number of close associates behaving as if life experience start and ends with them and there is nothing others could do or say to influence their position on issues. Even when all indications pointed to the fact that they are on the wrong path, yet they are never sway by the truth because the only truth they know is their own judgment or their own version of truth.

I could recall my early experience as a teenager, when a cousin of mine was explaining to us how artists record music in the studio and how the sound engineers manage the mixing to achieve sweet melody. Of course by our reaction, we felt this cousin of mine was just blabbing and have no clue to the operational mode of recording studio. Our conclusion then was merely based on our limited understanding, while his description of a musical recording studio was considered impracticable in our own eyes.

Years later, a number of us discovered that we were merely arguing in ignorance and that our vilification of my cousin’s position was because we refused to listen and ask the salient questions on how he arrived at the conclusion or sources of his information. We had assumed that since we grew up together within the same environment and never been exposed to such technicalities of a recording studio, my cousin must have been speaking from the point of ignorance. How wrong we were, if only we had asked the relevant questions and delve more into his source of information before we condemned him, we would have been better informed and our assessment of him would have been different.

So, it was with many people today, they behave like the fool who thinks he is wise. Our attitude toward life is basically comparable to an ostrich ways of life, ignore all wise counsel and focus rigidly on our perception of truth without giving a thought to the fact that our view of things could be wrong.

Why don’t you pause and ponder regularly on your position on any issue. Carry out a check up on your ignorant level, how often are you right on an issues and how often you are wrong in your judgement of things and men as well. If we constantly do a check on our behaviours, then we may as well get to know how often we act in ignorance and how such attitude has continue to place limitation on the way we are perceived by others.