Fola Daniel Adelesi: The Pressure is Theirs But The Responsibility is Yours

I feel like having a heart to heart chat with you about this issue of pressure. This is because so many people are beginning to yield to the pressure from other people. The unfortunate part of it is that we yield to pressure from other people and the responsibilities that come with those pressures often become ours. Why should we yield to the pressure that other people will not take responsibility for?

It is understandable that at different levels of life there will be pressure. When you are growing up there will be the pressure to do what others are doing, or to to be like someone. When you become mature there will be the pressure to get married. You may face the pressure to get an apartment of your own, or to even own a house. You may see others traveling abroad and getting a good vacation and you may be under the same pressure. We all don’t want to be left out of the show.

When a colleague buys a car, the next person will want to buy a car. When someone buys a kind of dress, every other person wants it in order to show that they are well to do.Sometimes, you don’t even know how those people are making their money yet you want to live large just like them.

I was in a school last year to address the secondary school students about pressure as it relates to their love life. I didn’t tell the boys not to have sex. I simply showed them all the responsibilities that they must be willing to shoulder after having sex. I reminded them, since most of them were teenagers and didn’t have jobs, that they would have to buy diapers every month and gave them the local price. We roughly calculated how many diapers a baby would need per day and how many would be used in a month. I brought up the cost of cooking soup and how often they would need to do that weekly. I continued with a list of several things that a responsible man must provide at home and said, ‘if you are willing to have sex then you must be ready for the responsibilities that come with it and get married.’

For many of us, it is easy to say that people are putting us under pressure to do one thing or the other. While you cannot stop people from mounting pressure on you, it is very important you remember the fact that you are the one that will be responsible for what happens after yielding to the pressure. If as a young adult you yield to the pressure of getting married, you are the one that will face the responsibility of being married. If you yield to the pressure of buying a car, you will face the responsibility of maintaining the car.

Life, as they say, is in phases and men are in sizes. You need to be mature enough to not get under the pressure that others are presenting to you. They have their own lives to live and you have your life to live. Be wise. Always think twice before you admit the things others are pushing you to do.

I remember being young and very playful. One day, my neighbour came around to play with me in our house and we were both climbing the burglary of my mum’s provision store. He suddenly stopped and pretended that he had broken the ceiling. He dared me to do the same. Rather than think about the consequences, I wanted to do same or at least also pretend that I broke the ceiling. While acting up my own part, the action became real. I had broken the ceiling! And you sure know young people. It’s never hard to find out who did what once you threaten serious beating. In my own house, my parents did not have to threaten serious beating. We already knew there was a standby horsewhip! I got under pressure and I faced the consequences with horsewhip.

Calm down when others are telling you what is right and you must do. They will not be there to pay the price for you. You will face the music alone. It is not that you will not eventually get married, but do it at your own time when you feel you are ready. You will buy a car, but buy it when you have the means – not when you must impress, because someone else is already oppressing with his own car.

Don’t be in a hurry to resign your job because everyone is now talking about being a CEO. They are not the ones that will pay your bills for you. Have everything properly planned or figured out. Remember that the pressure is theirs but the responsibilities that come with the pressure are yours!

Photo Credit: rawstory.com

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Fola Daniel Adelesi is a professional public speaker who also trains other speakers, an author, business consultant and highly skilled master of ceremony with excellent poise and diction. He was on the Debaters TV reality show season 1, presented ‘You Can’ on Radio Continental in 2011, did motivational segments on Galaxy TV from Dec 2008 to August 2009 and has authored 3 books including Writing Business Proposals.