AN UNSINKABLE SHIP

A COUPLE of years ago, a dear friend of mine sent me a text message that “There is only one unsinkable ship; it is friendship.” Even though within the context that the message was drafted and sent to me, it was meant to communicate a specific idea, I have come to appreciate this from a wider perspective. True friendship never sinks irrespective of the intensity of the tide that pushes against it. A great friendship is one that stands the test of time; goes through challenges and emerges firm and progressive. This week, my main task so far as this column is concerned is to express seven ingredients that characterise stable and unsinkable friendships.

1.     Acquaintance: Friendships evolve from the foundation of acquaintance. An acquaintance is someone you know at the periphery. The impressions you get from your acquaintances help you to determine whether or not to proceed to establish a more intimate relationship with people.

2.     Affirmation: Affirmation is the honest admission of what you recognise in a person. In any real friendship, the parties involved strive to accept people based on who they are. They are comfortable with each other’s strong points and definitely not embarrassed with their shortcomings and weaknesses. There is no insecurity as a result of somebody’s successes or strengths. Affirmation reinforces people’s strengths and inspires continuous progress. Any relationship that expects to sail through the storm without sinking must have a good dose of affirmation; a situation where each other’s strengths and personality are acknowledged.

3.     Association: By association, I’m referring to the interactions you have with your friends as well as memories you have of them. Good friends spend quality time together and enjoy each other’s company. They create landmarks that serve as souvenir banks for the relationship.

4.     Alliance: A friend is an ally. An ally is someone you cooperate with to achieve an aim. Friends collaborate to elevate each other on life’s ladder. They join forces to pursue ambitious tasks together. This boosts relationships and gives magnitude and direction to the relationship. Strategic alliances strengthen you and enhance your leverage in life.

5.     Assistance: Apart from all that we’ve discussed, another key attribute of good relationships is mutual assistance. Whereas alliance is about things you do together, assistance is limited to help that you receive for your personal endeavours. Do your friends support you to achieve your personal tasks? What role do you also play when your friend is pursuing their own goals? Good relationships have mechanisms to help one with their pursuits of life.

6.     Allegiance: Loyalty and commitment are essential hallmarks of every enduring relationship. You can’t have a lasting relationship with anyone if there is no assurance of commitment and trust. Each party in any relationship should be trustworthy. There should be an unshakable confidence on the part of your friend that you could be relied upon and vice versa. Where the spirit of allegiance prevails, there is trust and trust is a key sustainability factor in friendships.

7.     Affection: Affection is the fondness and tenderness of feeling that you have towards another person or thing. It is that sensation that becomes the breeding ground for love. It is a necessary component of friendship. When allegiance, assistance, alliance, association, affirmation and acquaintance fail, affection is the fuel that will keep the relationship running. The intensity of affection in any relationship determines its elasticity.

When I was younger, I read a piece in a magazine that said that the word ‘friend’ is a contracted form of the words ‘free’ and ‘end.’ What the writer of that article sought to put across was that friendship has a free end. In other words, true friendship has no end. My interpretation then was that true friendship was one that had no end in communication; a relationship that continues for life. This has some validity but growing up, I have come to realise that significant friendship is one that makes a landmark impact on you. The impact of such a relationship lingers and sometimes has ripple effect on several vital aspects of your life. Certain principles and lessons you imbibe from some of your friends might be useful even in their absence. Having a true friend does not necessarily imply that you will have permanent contact but its significance may be eternal.

This week, do a “friends check” and discover who your true friends are.

Can love really be blind?

WHAT does it mean to say that “love is blind?” This is a question that has engaged my mind for sometime now, especially in this season of valentine. According to the Encarta World English Dictionary, to be blind implies one is “unable to see, permanently or temporarily.” My bewilderment is this; if I can’t see a person, how can I love them? My view has been that I cannot love a person I don’t see. Something I see in a person would attract and make me fall in love with them. From where I sit, I imagine that people’s character traits, mannerisms, values, physique … are factors that elicit other people’s intense affection; love. Love is not blind, it sees. The fact that love sometimes overlooks what it sees does not water down it ability to see. So, what is love able to see? This week, I attempt to identify four things that love sees.

· Character: In my book Attitude is Everything! I speak of character as “who you are at all times.” Your character encompasses a set of qualities that combine to make you a distinctive personality. If someone loves you, it’s probably because of certain traits and behavioural values that you exude. In the same way, I guess you love people because of the qualities you see in them. Love does not operate in a vacuum; it’s fuelled by character.

· Potential: Character is who you are, potential is who you can be. Love considers the possibilities that are inherent in one’s life. Love does not limit itself to the circumstances of the present but also looks out for the possibilities of the future. True love does not despise small beginnings. It sees a superficially unimpressive situation and imagines how big and relevant it could be when it germinates. Nothing would make you want to be with someone forever unless you have a belief that something can come out of the relationship. Love sees and foresees.

· Needs: Love sees and meets needs. You cannot love someone and be blind to their needs and interests. If a person loves you, they would be interested in seeing you content. Contentment in life comes when you have your essential needs met. Love consciously looks out for those needs and takes steps to meet them. A person who is truly in love will assist their loved ones to meet their needs. Even if one cannot meet the need directly, they are able to offer the necessary advice and encouragement which then become the riding path for the person. Love sees and promotes the welfare of people. Any relationship that is bsed on love genuinely seeks to promote the well-being of the parties involved. Love is not blind to people’s needs.

· Appearance: Appearance could excite attraction and attraction is the foundation of love. You can’t love a person you are not attracted to. The way a person dresses determines the kind of people they attract. Even your gait could appeal to someone. Love is not blind. It sees your looks. It sees your clothes, talk and walk. A person’s general physical outlook could either make you love them or not.

I have come to the conclusion that love is not only emotional but spiritual, mental, social as well as physical. It is holistic and multifaceted. Love operates on all fronts. If we want to keep our love aflame, then we must keep all aspects of our lives lit. Love becomes meaningful and fulfilling when we love with our whole being. Loving with your whole being includes your eyes too; your senses of perception and understanding. Love keeps you alert.

Love may be patient in the face of provocation but certainly not blind. Love may not behave rudely but it doesn’t fail to recognise arrogance in people. Love reinforces positive qualities and attitudes in others while it graciously manages negative values. The gracious response of love to negative values should not be seen as blindness. When you say “I love you,” you are virtually saying “I see you.”

How to Develop A Positive Attitude

CHINESE philosopher Confucius profoundly stated that, “To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right.” Many people want to do things that will impact significantly on the world. Confucius encourages us that such aspirations are not far-fetched but have a point of beginning. It starts with us; setting our hearts right, developing a positive attitude. A positive attitude will put us on the path that leads to the destination we desire. In this series, we shall consider five actions that can be taken to develop a positive attitude towards life. Before we dive into that, let’s form a common perspective on the subject under discussion; Attitude. There are three perspectives that I would like us to contemplate;

· Paradigm: When you pour water into a container, it assumes the shape of that object. Water has no shape of its own without a container. Your mind is the container that receives all your experiences and carves out your life. Your paradigm refers to how your mind has been set to respond to issues and interpret the realities of your life. Situations that confront us in life are neither adverse nor advantageous by themselves but settle in the patterns and systems by which we run our lives.

· Interpretation: When you wear a lens, every object within your scope of view takes on the colour of the lens. When you put on a blue-tinted lens, every object you observe through the lens may appear bluish. The realities of life cannot be changed but you can have your own interpretation. Before you form your conclusion about any issue, just ask yourself, “What is the colour of my lens?”

· Response: You don’t have so much control over what happens to you but you can certainly determine your response to what happens to you. Irrespective of what happens, it is always possible to choose your response. When you fall, you can choose to either remain down or rise up. How you choose your responses determines the impact situations have on you.

Here are five suggestions regarding how you can develop a positive attitude:

1. Fashion your mind for success: Former US President Abraham Lincoln advised a young man who aspired to study law to “always bear in mind that your own ambition to succeed is more important than any other one thing.” If your ambition is positive, it will drive you to a positive destination. You cannot succeed in anything if you don’t make your mind up to succeed.

2. Filter what goes into your heart. The state of your heart is a direct result of the nature of its content. What you feed your life with is very crucial to determining what your attitude is. What books do you read? Which programmes do you listen to on radio? What is your favourite programme on TV? Who preaches to you every Sunday? You can’t have a disposition that is inconsistent with what you’ve been ingesting. You must filter every bit of information that comes to your gate and allow only what is beneficial to you to settle in your heart. By so doing, you progressively create a sense of optimism within you. Your perspective brightens and your general outlook on life will be embodied in a positive frame work.

3. Find great company. Good company enhances great values. The people around you determine the attitudes you nurture. To develop a positive attitude, you must have positive people around you. If you want to maintain sexual purity for instance, your closest friends should be people who esteem premarital abstinence, faithfulness to one’s spouse and sexual discipline. If there is such company around you, it offers the platform to share challenges, discuss practical initiatives and encourage each other.

Having people who believe in your potential also help you to have a positive mindset. If your best friends are those who do not believe in your future and have a low estimation of your capabilities, then you would do yourself a lot of good by replacing them. You have to hang around those who help you realise the possibilities of your life and inspire you with hope and confidence.

4. Focus on the good in any situation. Just as every coin has two sides, so does every situation have two faces. I learnt from Robert Schuller’s Tough Times Never Last But Tough People Do that success is failure turned inside out. Sometimes, people lose out of lifetime opportunities because they do superficial assessment of situations. Thomas Alva Edison categorically pointed out that, “Opportunity is missed by most because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” Just because something does not look good does not make it absolutely awful. You must look for a little good and give it your maximum attention.

5. Foster a daily attitude of positiveness: Developing a positive attitude is not an event but a process. It cannot be done in a day but must be done daily. To consolidate a new attitude, one positive action at a time, an encouraging book, a new friend...at one time or another would culminate in the kind of person you want to be; little by little, here a little, there a little. Start small and you’ll end big!

“You cannot be healthy; you cannot be happy; you cannot be prosperous; if you have a bad disposition,” remarks, Emmet Fox. I trust that you will keep navigating the path of positivity.

Building bridges

I BELIEVE that it is a grave tragedy for one to be out of touch with the wonderful people God sends their way. It is strategic to build and maintain a coherent network of relevant alliances with future-oriented and value-adding people. The people we associate and mingle with wield a significant influence on the direction our lives lead us. We deal with people at different levels and in diverse circumstances and contexts of our lives; in our offices, schools and churches. We also associate with people in the streets, market places and on public transport. Whichever angle one looks at it, people we meet influence us one way or the other. Our relationships could either make us or break us. We must therefore be committed to consolidating relationships that impact us positively.

 

It’s often said that the people you meet on your way up are the same people you meet on the way down. If this assertion is anything to go by, then it’s imperative that we watch how we treat the people in our lives. We must deal respectfully and graciously with the people we interact with. Never dismiss anybody in your life. Life is an interdependent phenomenon and what goes around comes around. The people who depend on you today might become the ones you would look up to tomorrow. The person who relies on you today for school fees might be the one to give you healthcare when you are indisposed. Your classmate might become your employer. Whoever we encounter in any sphere of life, it’ll be in our own interest to be courteous towards them.

 

A simple, inexpensive way to close the gap between you and the people you meet is to be able to smile genuinely. It is said to be the shortest distance between two people. It is an effective ice breaker; it has the capability of instantly connecting you with people. Smiling stimulates trust between people and fosters cooperation. When you smile to people, you tell them, “I’m for real, you can count on me.” So, the next time you meet somebody, don’t forget to smile.

 

It’s also important that we show genuine interest in people. By showing interest in people, you win their trust, commitment and loyalty. How do you show genuine interest in people? Simple; know people by their name. A person’s name is the sweetest sound in their ears. When answering the phone, say something like, “Hi Eric, how are you doing?” In applying for a job, use the name of the addressee in your salutation. So instead of “Dear Sir,” you can write “Dear Mr Asamoah.” Such an opening will grasp the person’s unreserved attention straight away. If you are good at names, you’ll be good with people.

 

Regarding people you have close ties with, you may have to step beyond their names to know them more deeply. Know their priorities, understand their interests and passions. We must be fully aware of their dreams and aspirations and be instrumental in bringing them into tangible existence. It is in doing so that we can elicit their cooperation towards achieving our own goals. This is quite consistent with Zig Ziglar’s mantra that “You can get whatever you want if you help enough other people to get what they want.” Remember the age-old saying; “hand go, hand come?” Beyond smiling and name-calling, this is how to demonstrate that you are indisputably interested in another person.

 

Furthermore, we could show interest by celebrating with people on special occasions. Making a phone call to say “happy birthday” will only enhance your relationship with the people in your life. When your friend or colleague hits a milestone such as college graduation, wedding anniversary or promotion at the workplace, it provides an avenue for you to boost your relationships.

 

Finally, I would like us to consider Turner’s remarks; “The mind of people is like mud, from which arise strange and beautiful things.” I’m in absolute agreement with Turner. People exude strange and beautiful things. What we get from them hinges on what they get from us. The relationships we nurture and invest in influence the success or otherwise of our lives. We must determine to build relationships that impact positively on our destiny.