Apologies for the depressing tone of this entry..

I’ve come to realise that the more effort you put into people, the less you get in return. I don’t mean material gifts or ‘i’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine’ favours, I’m talking about the simple heart-felt emotion of appreciation. This of course is not true of all people, there are probably far more people who would be appreciative of efforts made by others, but there is a small percentage who like to smudge that statistic.

There is undoubtedly a select few in everyone’s lives who we would go that extra mile for; dropping everything to meet their needs to the best of our ability, irrelevant of our circumstances. I have people I would do that for, a fair few in fact, but that number has unfortunately dwindled in recent years. Perhaps it’s my own naivety that has led to my eyes slowly opening to see what real appreciation is, I suspect that is more than likely to be the case. But realisation of that has left me slightly disappointed in some of those closest to me. I will still happily go that extra mile for them, but perhaps not with the same enthusiasm or regularity that I once might have. Knowing that they are more than willing to take help without much more than slightly selfish intentions is a disheartening thought.

I am not for a moment saying that I feel underappreciated, or in fact that I should be appreciated more, I would never dream of intentionally making myself out to be so pompous. This entry is based purely upon a recent observation that left me deep in thought. Naturally as a journalism student I am trained to extrapolate on things slightly, making things out to be far worse than they are, but that was not my intention, it is just a curse of the trade.

So perhaps a few wise words to those of you who are as naive as I am, treat people as you wish to be treated, but don’t allow yourself to give too much too soon without a truly just cause.

Again, I apologise for the negativity of this post, so in order to lift your spirits, a joke:

A Barman says, “We don’t serve time travellers in here”

A time traveller walks into a bar…