Don’t Take a ‘Bare Minimum’ from Anyone. Have Standards for Christ’s Sake!
Remember that subject in high school you hated but still had to perform well to get good grades?
Your teacher was sweet but still, you could not get yourself to like the subject.
Compared to other subjects you loved, how much effort did you put in this subject?
I guess you put in just enough to achieve the above-average performance required of you.
That’s what I call giving the ‘bare minimum’ and I’m going to talk about it a lot in this article.
Picture commitments in your present life you’d easily do away with but you can’t because a tiny part of you wants to cling to the small benefits the relationships offer.
For example…
I presume there’s someone convinced they’re your friend but you know very well they’re only meaningful to you when you have a complex assignment, otherwise they wouldn’t be a priority when making that guest list to your house warming party.
There’s that friend who always comes through when you’re financially crippled but you barely invited them over for dinner when things are merry because you undermine their mindset.
Perhaps its someone showing you genuine affections. You know well you wouldn’t date them yet you still ‘check-in’ on them when you’re feeling lonely or after things have gone sour with your partner.
Is it fair that you tolerate some people in your life just for convenience while, on the side, you don’t give a shit about them? The worst part about this hypocrisy is that you don’t want them to find out.
Keeping Others on Bare Minimum is Selfish of you
Sometimes we do what we have to do in order to survive. We call that self-preservation. But, how do we distinguish behavior driven by the need for preservation from one motivated by utter selfishness?
Humans are wittiest and wickedest of all animals mainly because of our intellectual capabilities. We lie and exploit others selfishly to get the things we want. Sometimes by even by pretending we are the people who we are not.
We can act out characters that aren’t our own to earn the trust of other people and then capitalize on that trust to get the things we want from them. And because what we want from the relationship, rather than the person, is whats important to us, we often preserve the relationship by giving just the bare minimum effort to keep it alive.
I look back and can’t help but curse at how selfish I was in a relationship I had sometime back. If I’m correct it lasted more than 5 years. Someone was putting in the time and emotional resources to sustain what we had and yet, like every other young lad my age, all I could do was act entitled and arrogant. I was giving just the bare minimum to keep me in a relationship with the person.
Whatever we put in the universe eventually comes back to us. I learned, the hard way, what it feels to get the bare minimum through other relationships I pursued thereafter, and which comparably lasted shorter. A couple of months or a year at most.
The bottom line is, my mindset is now more open and I don’t give the people who are sincerely concerned about me the bare minimum. Neither do I accept a bare minimum from anyone.
Ps; You should check out my post how helping others can enrich your life.
Are you a Bare Minimum Recipient?
Respect cuts both ways. If its uni-directional it, most likely, means that one party is being exploited.
Question is are you the victim of this exploitation or are you the one exploiting others?
Woe unto you if you are the latter. Eventually, your victims will realize that you’re taking them for a ride and cut off that parasitic cord you’re using to suck the life out of them.
But if you are the victim then I wrote this for you. It’s a wake-up call to preserve that energy you’re throwing to waste.
Do not let others, especially the people you often relate with, undermine you because you are flawed in one way or another. Let people place as much importance on you as you place on them. You’re of value regardless of your height, looks, skin color, facial hair, accent, education, income, relationship-status, shoe or bra size, butt-or-head shape,.
Examine relationships in your life and see which ones demand more effort from you than they are willing to give back. The same people giving you bare minimum are giving the full package elsewhere so why the double standards?
Questioning the nature of your relationships
If you have doubts about specific people in your life, ask yourself these few questions to recognize whether they are being real with you or just serving you the bare minimum.
Are you always helping out but when you ask help from the same person they make you feel like you’re a liability?
Does the person always say they are busy but when they finally have the time they give you just a small fraction of it— enough to keep you hopeful about the relationship?
Does the person respect you but just enough respect to keep you feel respected? Do they sometimes violate that line of respect for their convenience?
Is the relationship seasonal? Does the person suddenly show up in your life acting interested and then after some time of you two doing something together they disappear or start saying they have no time?
Are you there to be seen and not to be heard because the other party’s decisions must always prevail and you are expected to take it or leave it?
Does the person often offend you and when you seek explanations they just ignore like its nothing to fuss about expecting you to come around it and heal by yourself?
If you answered yes to the questions above you’re most likely a bare minimum recipient.
Putting yourself in check
Decide you will go all the way out for people who are genuinely concerned about your well-being. But for the people using you for their temporary fulfillment, revisit your terms of association. If you don’t draw this line by yourself they will keep drawing it for you and, trust me, you will not enjoy the outcome ninety-nine percent of the time.
Thriving on the bare minimum is for losers and you aren’t one; or are you? All relationships whether, business, friendship, or romantic must be sustained by the efforts of both parties. It is not your duty to compromise in a mutual relationship just to keep it going. For heaven’s sake have standards! It doesn’t matter what you stand to gain/lose from the relationship. If it isn’t a genuine one just re-evaluate your position or walk out altogether. What's the point in having many relationships that aren’t functional when you can have few that are healthy and very nourishing? When the same people you cut out will see your role in their life they will come back; this time without that bare minimum bullshit.
