Are these quotes about frienship the reality

“Show me your friend and I will tell you who you are”
“Birds of the same feather flock together”
I have heard these quotes many times. I don’t know their author and have not bothered to find out. And I had always questioned their authenticity until around 4am on 25th April, 2010. I had been awaken by multiple mosquitoes bites, there this invasion of mosquitoes in my area. A battle I have been fighting with different kind of insecticides and there is no hope for victory. This particular morning the mosquitoes won again they successfully woke me up. No thanks to the various adverts on TV by various insecticides making companies about how effective their products are. Though I have strategies with I intend to deal with them.

Back to my topic, until this particular morning I had never bothered to question the real meaning of friendship. But some events happened in succession in about a space of two weeks. Cumulatively they are all forced me to actually asked a personal question whether I do really have friends. On looking through my friend list I discovered that I do not have any if I had to look at my friends in comparison to the quotes above.

Most of my present friends are people I either met in primary school, secondary school, or in the university. Some of them because we were course mates, some we were room mates, some were my parents friends children, some we met in church, some in beer parlours, some in clubs. There are even some in work environments, some others through another friend.

My concerns is that is there any of these people that are called my friends that I became close to because we share these same values, or share the same belief or because they possess characters that I greatly cherish, no. Please, I am not saying my friends do not have good characters. Some of them will be reading this; you don’t have to be offended. I am only posing a question, which I think will help anyone that share my worries. My question is, did I choose to be close to them because of their good characters. My contention is that friendship is what we should seek out for based on value, beliefs, and dreams. If not, nobody will be able to know us by our friends. Most of our friendly engagements are what I call marriage of convenience.

I think friendship is like trying to woo a lady. You must have seen something of good value she possesses that you like before making proposals. I think that is how we can truly have friends that we can flock with.

Though overtime there is a life sieve that helps us sort out the different relationships in our lives. Most of these greet guys I met in primary school, some we have not seen in years. Some we still talk to each other regularly. The question I want us to genuinely ask ourselves is this. Is the relationship symbiotic or parasitic?
Some of this great folks you will not realize how good or bad they are until you had to do business together. Some until you lose your source of income, or until something’s affect your health in the adverse. Go check your friend’s list don’t wait for the natural sieve. If you need a friend go out and make one, sometimes they are more than a brother.  You can not choose a brother, but you can choose your friend..       
 
 

Goals or desire

I always shared this belief with people whenever I have the opportunity, that our level of success depends how deep we understand those things that matter in life. Simply our success or failure is a function of our understanding. I had always abused this simple and powerful technique goal setting until recently that I grasped its meaning, thanks to the book Richest man in Babylon. Just like I shared my understanding on the subject work, in my last posting I stumbled on a definition of goal. Using the word stumble would be insincere. When you have been fasting and praying for over 60 days, and you received illumination by reading a book that have always been there that you read before but did not connote anything. It is not luck; it was light product of work. Ever since, I have caught fire. That is why I am sharing my testimony with you, now I can confidently say that I am in charge of my life, I would have said I am rich but discovered being in charge is more important than wealth. If you are in charge you can produce anything you want or need.

This is the simple definition, a goal is simple and practical tasks that are achievable. While, desires are possibilities seeking expressions. What I am driving at is that we must understand the distinction between desire and goal. You may not know how to realize your desire, it is allowed. I am not preaching pessimism, what I am saying is that the path to realizing a desire does not have to be clear. Discovering electricity Thomas Edison failed 999 times. Joseph could not have mapped out how he became Egypt’s prime minister. But you must know what to do to accomplish your goals. If you don’t know how to achieve it then it is not a goal but a desire. Goals must be definite, time bound, concrete and gradual. It must be one step after the other.

In a football game a player knows the path to the goal post. He is already trained on how to score a goal. There may be obstacles along his path but he knows what he wants and what to do. My point is that goals are paths to desire. The shortest path to success in life is to make your goals simple and practicable as possible. For example if you discover that you need five million Naira (Nigeria money) to lead the kind of life you want. Your goal could be as simple as saving fifty thousand Naira yearly for investment that could lead to five million Naira.
To save fifty thousand Naira, even if it is five thousand Naira yearly is simple and practicable. Make sure your goals are things you can take control of and God will handle your desires. Goals are to desire what cells are to a body, if you don’t deal with the goals the desires will become impossible.

WORK

I think strongly that the reason a lot of people have not become financially empowered as they will want to be is lack of the true or deep understanding of the word “work”. In as much as I believe that some of our acts as human are wrongly named. For example I wonder why trade is called business, looking at the etymology (study of history of words) of business it is traced to the state of being busy. From that account it implies that activity is celebrated over profit. I think this is totally incorrect; profit should rank higher than being ‘busy’, because without profit any and all businesses die. That is why I want to promote a change of name.
We can decide to rename this single most important act of man either as profitness, gainess,or wealthiness etc. I will subscribe to any name that promotes productivity, profit rather than the activity.

So I will be using this article to correct one of these many wrong interpretations or poorly organized naming ceremonies, like allowing Lord Lugard mistress the honour to give Nigeria her name, and no protest from our founding fathers.

I will like to approach this definition from science point of view. In science work is the product of force and distance, it is the amount of energy transferred by a force acting through a distance. The force must be applied in a specific direction.
In science there is something like zero work; this is when the force applied does not move a body or its position is not altered, no work is done. For example a book on a table, though a gravitational force is acting on it, in as much the position remain unchanged no work is done.

We must realise...
Work is not activity, which is where a lot of folks are confused. It is not the amount of energy dissipated, nor is it about the amount of effort invested. It is rather Returning on Investment (RoI). So before we start expending energy, we must be able define the distance we want to cover. We must know what we want to accomplish before embarking on the activity. That is what goal setting is all about
Work must be done with the outcome in view. We must clearly define what we intend to achieve. You must be able to answer the question. What am I trying to achieve by taking up this job? When such objectives are not clearly spelt out frustration is inevitable. This singular knowledge turns you into an entrepreneur even while an employee in another person’s office. It teaches you flexibility. Once you realize you are not about achieving your goal, you quickly change jobs, it teaches you professionalism. This lesson is simple, no work is done until you achieve your goal. Understand I am not trying to say that achieving goals is just about taking one giant stride, what I am teaching is that each of your baby steps must be taken with the goal post in view. Don't try to entertain, no drama. It is all about scoring goals, it makes the difference. You don’t get good grades by just writing some things down, you get it by answering the question correctly.

We must realise that air planes, vehicles, sky scrappers, jets, paper were created from the same brains that all of us carry around with our bodies. They are product of Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs well used brains. Do you want a car, a house, a beautiful family. Sit down, think, meditate, study, read, pray, be flexible, be dogged. Don’t take no for an answer, anything is possible to him that believes.

Money

The economy, after all, is a confidence game. That's why financial analysts use psychological phrases like "jittery markets" and "economic anxiety." It's no accident that the word credit comes from the Latin word for belief.