CAN I GET AN ENCORE?
My dear Jack, I present 60 lessons from my
letters to you in 2015. I hope you take them to
heart as you enter the new year. Here they
are:
1. It’s not the beauty of a wife that keeps a
man from straying. It is self-discipline.
2. You need discipline before marriage, and
you need discipline after marriage.
3. Pray for a woman who cares about you,
who sees your success as her success and her
success as yours.
4. Pray for someone who wants you, who’ll be
so identified with you she’s you. Two people,
one life.
5. Love is a friendship of the heart.
6. In a marriage love matters. Affection
maters. Attraction matters. Physical attributes
matter. So does character.
7. If you don’t love her don’t marry her. If
you’re not attracted to her leave her alone.
8. If you can’t afford a home of your own it
just means you’re not ready for marriage. Get
your own home.
9. A man without a mind of his own is not a
man.
10. Learn to take responsibility for the natural
consequences of your action. Be a man!
11. Stubbornness reads humility as
humiliation.
12. Learn to sleep over things. Don’t be hasty
of action if the answer is not clear to you.
13. She’s lonely and you’re lonely, hence
relationship. There’s a danger to such
matches.
14. Sex is a very powerful impulse, a very
strong drive. Don’t let it drive you, it’s a bad
driver.
15. The greatest danger about addiction to
porn and masturbation is that it alienates
intimacy.
16. If you want to stop your addiction to
masturbation, cut off the accelerant and
oxygen to the flame in your groin – porn!
17. Pay attention to your wife so she doesn't
feel you don’t really care about her.
18. You can’t approach marriage like you
already know. It’s not accommodating and it’s
arrogant.
19. Listen. Acknowledge. Adopt. Adapt. Make
time. Make room. Make friends. Seven
matrimonial virtues.
20. Put more resources into your marriage
than your wedding.
21. Don’t marry what you can’t afford.
22. Nothing is as depressive as being locked
up for eternity in a marriage with someone
you don’t like.
23. If you want a truly loving and affectionate
relationship, you and your partner must be
sincere with each other. Sincerity is
nakedness.
24. It is important your wife has a sense of
security in your marriage. It’s why you need
to keep affirming her, assuring her of your
love.
25. Love needs to be expressed. You express
love to build faith. Faith comes by hearing
what is told.
26. If you do lose a good woman, go and beg
her; woo her back, before another comes to
take your place.
27. Romance is we. Romance is us. Romance is
never me.
28. Balance things in your home. Pay
attention to your wife and kids, or your home
may not survive your ambition.
29. It’s important to have an honest
relationship with your child. Sometimes that’s
all children want.
30. Don’t allow your mum’s pursuit of the
status of grandma turn your marriage into
collateral damage.
31. For a marriage to break from external
pressure there must be fissure within.
32. Loving takes effort. Loving is
responsibility. Just try. That’s all it takes. Try.
33. Whatever you want in marriage you must
be ready and willing to give.
34. When you want to choose a marriage
partner, think of the future not just now. And
certainly not just sex.
35. A bad marriage starts with a wrong choice
of partner. And such partners are not
necessarily bad people. They may just be bad
for each other.
36. When our friends are in marital trouble
what they need from us is not sermonizing.
Just compassion. They’re in pain!
37. When values are shared, a marriage has a
greater chance of success.
38. A friend is born for adversity. You know
your friends when you’re in trouble.
39. If character can make someone beautiful,
a deficiency of it can make someone patently
ugly. Character is beauty.
40. A lonely man is vulnerable. A successful
young man is a target. Don’t let the physical
blind you to the obvious.
41. You’ve got to have a primary project every
year – something momentous you’re pursuing
for the year.
42. You have to become successful before you
become successful. That’s the lesson from
Joseph. Joseph was successful as a slave.
43. Tolerating in courtship what you can’t
accommodate in marriage is a creative process
for pain and anger.
44. These four things are important in
marriage: love, peace, happiness, friendship.
45. If you proceed into a relationship knowing
it will bring you sorrow, why, you’ve decided
to crack coconut with your skull.
46. Manhood is not emotionlessness. It is not a
lack of empathy. A man lacking in empathy is
psychopathic.
47. If you’re going to have a shot at marital
joy you’ll have to forbear, and learn to
forbear, and choose to forbear.
48. When there’s no money a marriage soon
wakes from fairy tales of love. Love and
responsibility are co-travellers.
49. Solomon said time and chance happen to
all. That means your opportunity will come.
But will you be ready?
50. It’s not where you start that matters. It’s
your determination to keep going, to keep
pushing, on the inside of you.
51. Whether we acknowledge such or not,
your determination to succeed will impact
your girlfriend’s love for you. Being real!
52. Don’t hate what you desire. Stop hating
the successful. Not every successful person is
crooked.
53. As per your wife, if you want to be the
man who “hit it first”, tell me, the women you
hit first who’ll marry those?
54. The woman you need is the one who
believes in your future, believes in the
potential of your greatness in life.
55. Forget all that stuff about opposites
attracting. Are you a magnet?
56. If you can’t trust someone don’t marry the
someone.
57. Men change as they make money, as they
rise in life. Without groundedness, success
can wreck a home.
58. Never cross the line of violence in your
marriage. Or in anything for that matter.
59. Every line you cross in life becomes
temptation to you.
60. Responsibility defines a man, not virility.
