Everyone wants something.
But not everyone gets what they want.

This article will show you the most guaranteed way to getting what you want.

Imagine a University setting, say in the department of social sciences, there is Sophia and Alfred.
Sophia puts in a lot of study hours, tops her class, participate in group projects, mentor other students but rarely goes to parties or social events. She is more than dedicated to her academics and often considered a book warm introvert.
Then there is Alfred on the other hand who barely attends lectures, spend most of his time partying and organizes the best social events. His grades are average, and he’s not very dedicated to his studies, but he’s a lively person to be around.

If the scholarship committee wants to award a scholarship for academic excellence, who do you think deserves it more?  You would agree that should be Sophia.

But, say the department is looking for someone to be the director of socials, between Sophia and Alfred, the most deserving of that position would very likely be Alfred, for obvious reasons. Not always, but often times, our actions and efforts are good indicators of what we get.

Two Nigerians, Kelvin and David are interested in relocating abroad (Japa), either through school or a job offer. One day a job opportunity comes by, to get the offer, the requirements is for them to pass the job interview and be in possession of an international passport to immediately process their visa.

Both applicants passed the interview. Unfortunately, David does not have a valid international passport, but Kelvin does, who do you think will get the job offer?

Deserving something can be a subjective concept, influenced by various factors such as individual effort, actions, contributions, need, the nature of things and fairness. In many significant cases, deservingness is tied to meeting specific criteria or fulfilling certain conditions. And in many cases, meeting these criteria is a function of effort, hard work, the right mindset and teachable actions. Such that the choice of what to be deserving of is significantly in the hands of an individual. To deserve or merit something can also be linked to societal norms and values, but in the end, the idea is indeed complex and can vary depending on the nature of things, cultural, ethical, and personal perspectives.

Although deservingness as used in these examples and explained in this article is not from a purely moral standpoint, it signals that key criteria needs to be met for certain outcomes to be likely. Like the fact that David cannot travel abroad without a valid international passport or that Sophia tops her class and has excellent academic results.

Talking about merit this way is difficult because you cannot completely ignore the moral aspect  of it. However, the most likely way to get what you want is to deserve it and the best way to deserve what you want is to meet the requirements for what you want. To deserve the academic scholarship in our example demands that you have good academic grades. That a struggling student is struggling because of financial constraints, hence a scholarship would be more useful to him is a totally different aspect of this example and part of the moral angle to deservingness that makes it a complex topic.