What is some advice that actually changed your life?
We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last LectureWe are enthralled not by the lusts of society but by what lusts in our darkest demons. Do we give in? Or do we run and run till our hearts bleed?
Opinions
Advice is littered everywhere these days from being plastered on facebook, twitter, and tumblr walls to tidbits in the columns of newspapers. Others have a tendency to impose their advice on others regardless of if we ask for it or not. So today, without further aidu I wish to impose my advice as a writer, lover, and worker about what kind of advice works and what kind of advice should be tossed to the garbage can.
I look at advice through the same lens as opinions. Everyone is entitled to share their opinion just as they are to express advice. I’m not biased just open minded. My ears are open to words of wisdom just as much as they are to an opinion. Its sorting through the opinions that try to be advice, and the advice that ends up being an opinion that becomes hard. Take for instance the sorting hat in Harry Potter,
“ You might belong in Gryffindor where dwell the brave at heart. Their daring nerve and chivalry set Gryffindors apart.”
― J.K. Rowling
The hats job is an automatic sorter. It tries to guesstimate a person based on their personality, and memories. Which sometimes the hat gives its wearer a decision to either pick one house over the other instituting the power of free will and opinion. But every once in a while the hat offers advice with it especially when Harry was fighting between Gryffindor and Slytherine. In the end, Harry went with his opinion about Gryffindor rather than the advice to go to Slytherine.
Thus, we are often not swayed by the power of advice but by the opinion of the advice giver. Hence, why people tend to take their first hard drug. Its not because they want to for sure. Its due to the surroundings, advice of people in the room, and the opinion of someone close. All three of these things thrown together is a recipe for an addict. But we remain so sure that advice and opinion are not intertwined that we don’t look at advice as one in the same as opinion.
Take it from me- You may want to look at both of these through the same lens. True advice that is not opinionated will always sound cruelest before you see the dawn.
“Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real.”
― Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses
You can not heal what you first refuse to acknowledge
The problem with good advice is we often don’t see it as advice at first. From my experience only harshest and truest words tend to be the most unbiased forms of advice possible. So, here is a cheers to all the people in my life that gave me an unforeseen ray of light.
There are very few parts of me that I haven’t observed myself but I know I don’t know everything about me. I only know what I perceive myself to know. What I see in the mirror is a bland, average, and ugly woman compared to what other viewers may see. My harshest critic is me. But due to this perception my self confidence has fallen completely.
If there is one piece of advice that I have gotten from the world it came in the shape of intricately laced poison. “ Jess, if you walk around like the world doesn’t notice you than you surely will make yourself invisible to all eyes. Including mine.”
I never thought about the words of my friend here. Contemplating the insult for just a second never occurred to me but he gave me the advice I didn’t know I needed. Though it came a bit too late I think.
Tommy is no longer the boy of my second love. He’s evolved into somebody I understand but someone of whom only spent little time with me. This boy changed his gender from male to female and became known as Melissa. Melissa is like a sister to me. A sister I never had but she is not the same person as my vivid memories of childhood that cry out to me.
I sometimes dream about my childhood and I frighten at the idea of the man being gone like a flash of dust. His advice to me made sense as it may not make sense to others but if you live your life trying to avoid people, and problems that make you uncomfortable than a part of you disappears.
Upon further analysis I think it pertained to the fact that I not only found myself unattractive but that I didn’t want attention no matter how alluring attention is. Due to what I perceived of myself I would only attract what I saw in myself. At age thirteen it made rethink about beauty. Often I replay the words in my head and realized in one way Tommy was saying he loved me as I was and didn’t want to find me in the future trying to be a woman I am not because that to him would be unattractive.
In turn, I learned two things from this advice. Looks are not everything, and the kind of person you wish to attract must come from yourself first. Its true that sometimes I wish to be a super model but then I remember the pain, and the eyes on them all the time and think twice about it.
Its a bitter sweet symphony.
Without self-realization you are only a mirror of society, which is to say a mirror of madness.
— Bryant McGill
Without self you are just a pawn
I’m the biggest preacher about people on their cell phones, Yea, call me out for my old school ways but when cell phones didn’t exist our parents were left with choices. Trust your child, or punish your child if they lied. Ahh..the good old days. Now, parents are given the right to track their child, safe guard their child, and ultimately make that child dependent on the parent for almost anything.
Which means kids turn to devices rather than hanging out in the daylight, and they begin to believe their lives only matter if they have a certain amount of likes, shares, and comments. When your life amounts to what other people think that’s when you become a slave to society.
Society is madness. Its programming people to give in to madness and not respect one another anymore. Drake said it best in his current song-
“ I know a girl whose one goal was to visit Rome
Then she finally got to Rome
And all she did was post pictures for people at home
’Cause all that mattered was impressin’ everybody she’s known
I know another girl that’s cryin’ out for help
But her latest caption is “Leave me alone”
I know a girl happily married ’til she puts down her phone
I know a girl that saves pictures from places she’s flown
To post later and make it look like she still on the go.”
Sounds like majority of the people on my Facebook. Which I might constantly be on Facebook but I am constantly looking at Facebook because I shut my computer , and phone off in sleep mode. Bam. Anyways, social media is madness and it is growing like a disease.
Loyalty almost non-existent in relationships anymore because those on social media claim to do it better. Have you heard?
I’m not that kinda girl. Upon the way I was raised it was be yourself, be who you need to be, and if someone ain’t loyal don’t cry about it just walk away. Simple as that. Know thy self and know everything else is just a window for your observation.
My opinion of social media is its over-rated and toxic. Hate me for it but I find its only use is to stay in touch with friends.
“Never ruin an apology with an excuse.”
― Benjamin Franklin
Treat others the way you want to be treated
Oh, it’s this slogan again? You may not know but this is one of the tip pieces of advice you can give a person struggling with the world. If you go to a coffee store and don’t tip- don’t expect the same treatment from someone else. I’m in an industry that survives off of tips just as much as a coffee hostess and I don’t walk into a place and not tip.
Its just common courtesy but these days its getting drained by racism, white supremacy, and people remarking on social media why they don’t tip. So, I would like to a raise a glass and toast to everyone who tips, and respects others.
Anyways, theoretically if everyone treated others the way we wanted to be treated the world would seamlessly be a better place. In fact, no one would go outside worrying about where their children might be.
When you say you are sorry mean it. Don’t just get scared and run away or come up with a quick excuse to safe guard your apology. Honesty is something everyone deserves. So, we be honest then we are treating someone else the way we want to be treated.
A piece of advice such as this works full circle and tends never to go wrong because Karma has a way of coming back and haunting us. Trust in the way things are and hope for better. Those that don’t change for the better will fall into their own mistakes. At least, that’s my opinion.
With that I want you to remember out there that there is a boy or girl who can’t see the beauty of nice days, or hear the birds chirp, and walk on their own two feet. For this I am asking that you don’t take people for granted, and that you don’t waste time worrying about things that will eventually play out in the end.
Its time we stop living for strangers on the inter-web, and instead take a look at the world around us.
