Everyone has an opinion and, good intentions or not, they will share it with you. Everyone has advice on how you should live your life and often they do more damage than good. Most of the time, it comes from a place of love and a desire to help a friend in need. Other times, advice can come from a place of selfish needs. When you read my blogs, you are doing it voluntarily, so don't loop me in with that pushy group!
"He is a dick and you should have broken up with him years ago".
3 days later you are back together and you now know how your friend REALLY feels about the guy you are dating. The tone has been set for future awkward moments. By soliciting that advice, you have put a wedge between you and your friend. By giving that advice, even though you did it out of love, you have set your relationship back a ways. If you always hated the guy, then selfishly you might have taken the opportunity to alter the balance of the relationship to your liking. There is rarely a win-win here.
So why listen? Why help? Why ask for advice?
We don't like being the one who makes hard decisions that hurt or change feelings that affect ourselves. We are all experts on the relationships of others, because we don't have to suffer the initial or long term pain that comes with it. The easy answer is to encourage the severing of the relationship. That way, nobody gets hurt when they are all alone. Lonely people will never get hurt, right?
We all know what's best for us. Deep down inside, instinctually, we all know what we should be doing. Addicts know they shouldn't be doing meth. Cheaters know that they shouldn't be cheating. We are not a bunch of babies, so we can't fall back on any idea that we didn't know any better.
"He doesn't know what he's doing". That's crap.
I don't give advice as much as I reaffirm, to people who ask, what the right thing is to do. You almost always know the right answer, but you need to hear it from another person. Consensus makes the obvious become more obvious. Group decisions give the person who is pulling the trigger, the security blanket that comes with siding with the mob.
Make sure you surround yourself with the right people and not those who would use your moments of weakness and doubt against you. Surround yourself with people who will give it to you straight and tell you what you really need to hear. Just be prepared to accept what you are asking for because the right thing is rarely the easy thing.
You already know what the right thing to do is. Just do it.
