QUESTION # 1: Do we share a common life purpose?
Why is this so important? Let me put it this way: If you’re married for 20 or 30 years, that’s a long time to live with someone. What do you plan to do with each other all that time? Travel, eat and jog togeth-er? You need to share something deeper and more meaningful. You need a common life purpose. Two things can happen in a marriage. You can grow together, or you can grow apart. 50% of the people out there are growing apart. To make a marriage work, you need to know what you want out of life – bot-tom line – and marry someone who wants the same thing.

QUESTION # 2: Do I feel safe expressing my feelings and thoughts with this person?
This question goes to the core of the quality of your relationship. Feeling safe means you can commu-nicate openly with this person. The basis of having good communication is trust! i.e. trust that I won’t get “punished” or hurt for expressing my honest thoughts and feelings. A colleague of mine defines an abusive person as someone with whom you feel afraid to express your thoughts and feelings. Be honest with yourself on this one. Make sure you feel emotionally safe with the person you plan to marry.

QUESTION # 3: Is he/she a mensch?
A mensch is someone who is a refined and sensitive person. How can you test? Here are some sugges-tions.
1. Do they work on personal growth on a regular basis?
2. Are they serious about improving themselves?
A teacher of mine defines a good person as “someone who is always striving to be good and do the right thing”. So, ask about your significant other:“What do they do with their time? Is this person ma-terialistic?” Usually, a materialistic person is not someone whose top priority is character refinement. There are essentially two types of people in the world: People who are dedicated to personal growth and people who are dedicated to seeking comfort. Someone whose goal in life is to be comfortable will put personal comfort ahead of doing the right thing.You need to know that before walking down the aisle.

QUESTION # 4: How does he/she treat other people?
The one most important thing that makes any relationship work is the ability to give. By giving, we mean the ability to give another person pleasure. Ask: Is this someone who enjoys giving pleasure to others or are they wrapped up in themselves and self-absorbed? To measure this, think about the fol-lowing:
1. How do they treat people whom they do not have to be nice to, such as waiters, bus boys, taxi dri-vers, etc?
2. How do they treat parents and siblings? Do they have gratitude and appreciation?
3. Do they show respect? If they don’t have gratitude for the people who have given them everything, you cannot expect that they’ll have gratitude for you, who can’t do nearly as much for them!
4. Do they gossip and speak badly about others? Someone who gossips cannot be someone who loves others. You can be sure that someone who treats others poorly, will eventually treat you poorly as well.

QUESTION # 5: Is there anything I’m hoping to change about this person after we’re married?
Too many people make the mistake of marrying someone with the intention of trying to “improve” them after they’re married. As a colleague of mine puts it:”You can probably expect someone to chan-ge after marriage…for the worse!” If you cannot fully accept this person the way they are now, then you are not ready to marry them. In conclusion, dating doesn’t have to be difficult and treacherous. The key is to try leading a little more with your head and less with your heart. It pays to be as objective as possible when you are dating, to be sure to ask questions that will help you get to the key issues. Fall-ing in love is a great feeling, but when you wake up with a ring on your finger, you don’t want to find yourself in trouble because you didn’t do your homework.

How will I know if I’ve met the person I should marry?

The choice of a marriage partner should not be based on “I get a warm, wonderful feeling whenever we’re together and I want to have that warm wonderful feeling forever, so let’s go get married”. Feel-ings, as we have discussed, have no logic on their own. They need to be acknowledged, of course, but they need considerable assistance from your brain. Marriage means choosing the person you will spend the rest of your life with. This, as you may have guessed, is a very long time to spend with one person. This person will live with you, eat meals with you, sleep with you and go on vacation with you. More important yet, this person will share your children.You need to choose wisely. The decision should not be made based on feelings alone. You need to ask yourself some tough questions. The decisions have to be made on solid considerations.
1. Will this person be a good partner?
Is she mature enough to put her own selfish desires aside to look out for what is best for the family? Is he prepared to be a good provider? What is his track record? Is he responsible enough to get a good job and keep it?
2. Will this person be a good parent? Can you stand the thought of your children turning out exactly like this person? They will, you know. Children spend a lot of time with their parents and conse-quently pick up many or most of their parents’ character traits. You had better like your spouse’s traits a lot because you will be seeing them again in your children. If something were to happen to you, would you completely trust this person, alone, with the task of raising and forming your children? This is not a pleasant thought, but it is an important consideration. Not everyone dies at a ripe old age with great grandchildren gathered around the bed. Sometimes a parent dies and leaves young children in the care of the other parent. If you feel that you would need to be around to cor-rect or lessen this person’s influence on your children, then you are considering the wrong person.
3. Does this person share your faith in God? God does not give us children so that we can mould them into the coolest, most popular people in school. Our job is to get them to heaven. To do that, we need to raise them believing in God. It is tough to do that if only one parent believes. Saying “This is right and that is wrong, and I want you to ignore Mommy until you are 35″ does not work. Small children ask about eight million questions in a single day. The answers to those questions go a long way toward forming the kind of adults they will become. Who will be answering those que-stions for your children?
4. Does this person you are marrying have sexual self-control? Single people sometimes have this idea that marriage is just some kind of lifelong sex festival and that as long as they have each other, they will never be tempted by other people. Wrong! There are many times in every marriage when one partner or the other is sexually unavailable – illness, the last months of pregnancy, travel. There are also times when spouses, just get on each others’ nerves. At times like this, other people can seem very appealing. That can be dangerous, because there are plenty of very attractive people out there who are willing to make themselves available to married men and women. Do you want someone who has never said “no” to sex? If he is not good at saying “no” at 18, it won’t be different at 40. Do you want to worry about whether or not your spouse is being faithful? These are very important questions, and if you are not comfortable with all of the answers, you should definitely not marry this person. None if this is to say that feelings play no role at all in a marriage decision. You don’t have to say:’Well, I suppose that you would make a good spouse and parent, so even though I don’t particularly like you, I guess I’ll marry you’. You need to be hap-py and excited about the prospect of spending your life with someone. Your brain however must acknowledge that this person is a good choice. Don’t listen to your heart alone nor to your head alone. Wait until your heart and head agree.

Chris Anderson memaparkan contoh yang terjadi di toko buku online Amazon.com dalam bukunya yang saat ini menghebohkan dunia, The Long Tail. Pada 1988, seorang pendaki gunung asal Inggris bernama Joe Simpson menulis buku berjudul Touching The Void, sebuah cerita sangat menegangkan tentang situasi antara hidup dan mati di Pegunungan Andes di kawasan Peru. Walau resensi mengenai buku ini bagus, penjualannya biasa saja dan segera dilupakan orang. Satu dasawarsa kemudian sesuatu yang aneh terjadi. Ketika sebuah buku lain tentang tragedi pendakian gunung karya Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air sukses terjual, tiba-tiba buku Touching The Void mulai terjual lagi.

Apa pemicu semua itu? Ketok tular online alias word of mouth lewat internet. Ketika Into Thin Air pertama kali dirilis, beberapa pembaca menulis resensinya di Amazon.com yang menunjukkan kemiripannya dengan buku Touching The Void yang kurang terkenal. Pada saat yang sama mereka memuji betapa bagusnya buku Touching The Void. Mereka yang membaca resensi bagus ini kemudian membeli buku itu via Amazon.com. Karena toko buku online itu memiliki sistem yang canggih, bisa mendeteksi kecenderungan pembelian, maka muncul rekomendasi dari Amazon.com, bahwa orang yang membeli Into Thin Air juga membeli Touching The Void.

Efek berantainya pun berlanjut ke dunia nyata. Toko-toko buku mulai memajang buku Touching The Void bersebelahan dengan Into Thin Air. Lantas IFC Film meluncurkan sebuah dokudrama mengenai Touching The Void dengan resensi yang bagus. Disusul kemudian oleh upaya HarperCollins menerbitkan ulang buku dengan versi murah, yang bertahan 14 minggu dalam daftar buku laris di New York Times. Puncaknya, pada 2004 penjualan Touching The Void mengungguli penjualan Into Thin Air dua kali lipat lebih!

Menurut Anderson, fenomena itu bukan kisah sukses penjual buku online. Itu adalah sebuah model ekonomi baru untuk industri media dan hiburan. Itulah fenomena Ekor Panjang, yang dipakai sebagai judul bukunya. Buku ini membuka wawasan baru agar para pelaku bisnis tidak terpukau oleh produk-produk populer yang digemari oleh banyak konsumen.

Selama ini kita hampir selalu mengacu pada popularitas. Best seller, top hit dan istilah sejenisnya selalu menjadi patokan sukses. Toko buku memajang buku-buku best seller di tempat-tempat strategis. Bioskop hanya memutar film-film laris. Bioskop baru memutar film tidak populer jika penonton mencapai jumlah tertentu. Radio lebih sering mengumandangkan lagu-lagu yang sedang menjadi top hit. Sebagian besar uang beredar di Jakarta, padahal sebagian besar penduduk bertempat tinggal di luar Jakarta.

Jika hal itu dipetakan ke kurva penjualan, kita terpaku pada titik kurva tertinggi. Sementara di kurva yang rendah, yang membentuk ekor panjang, diabaikan. Intinya, ingin mendapatkan uang banyak dengan melayani sebagian kecil. Inilah ekonomi dan bisnis yang kita jalankan selama ini. Kita terpaku pada hukum pareto.

Tidak ada yang salah dengan hal itu. Namun, internet membuka babak baru. Anderson yang penasaran dengan fenomena ekor panjang ini melakukan riset mendalam di perusahaan-perusahaan internet yang berhasil seperti Amazon.com, eBay, Rhapsody dan lainnya. Hasilnya makin meyakinkan pendapatnya bahwa semakin banyak yang kita sediakan, semakin besar pula hukum ekor panjang terjadi.

Ketiga bisnis dotcom tadi menyediakan produk dalam jumlah hampir tak terbatas. Amazon tidak hanya menjual buku-buku laris. Buku-buku yang tidak dijual di toko buku pun ada di sana. E-bay melelang barang-barang unik yang tak ada di pasaran. Rhapsody menyediakan lagu-lagu usang dan lagu-lagu yang tak laku di pasaran. Namun, data menunjukkan bahwa ketika disediakan di internet, buku yang tak laku, lagu yang aneh dan tidak digemari publik, serta barang yang unik pun ada pembelinya. Tidak pernah tak laku, meski hanya terjual satu per kuartal. Data juga menunjukkan, jika penjualan produk-produk kurang laku itu dijumlahkan, nilainya lebih besar ketimbang nilai penjualan produk-produk populer!

Mereka yang terpaku pada hukum pareto akan sadar bahwa pasar yang mereka abaikan, pasar yang ecek-ecek, bernilai kecil, ternyata sesungguhnya adalah pasar yang besar. Popularitas tiba-tiba ambruk dengan kenyataan ini. Ia tidak lagi memonopoli profitabilitas.

Ekonomi baru ini bukan hanya tantangan untuk kalangan pebisnis, tapi juga Anda para praktisi HR. Strategi HR seperti apa yang harus diterapkan jika perusahaan bergerak ke arah ekonomi baru ini? Sayang, hal ini tidak jadi bahan kupasan The Long Tail. Tapi, Anda perlu membaca ini sehingga ketika CEO Anda sedang membahas hal ini Anda sudah siap.

Sumber :

Buku: The Long Tail: Bagaimana Pilihan Tak Terbatas Menciptakan Permintaan Tak Terbatas
Pengarang: Chris Anderson
Penerbit: Gramedia Pustaka Utama, 2007
Penulis Resensi: Nukman Luthfie