Gonna take your own advice…

When I think about giving advice, I think about giving people the right words or encouragement they may need in order to advance in life. The truth is, we all have problems that are needed in order to find that right balance in life of positive and negative events in one’s life. Last week, I was having a great discussion with a friend of mine about advice and taking your own advice. For example, if you tell somebody that  to wake up early is great and it makes your day much longer, but you yourself don’t do it then you are kind of doing yourself and your friend an injustice. I believe the reason that we don’t take our own advice is 1. It is easy to not put yourself in other people’s shoes 2. You want to seem selfless and helpful to others in need and 3. There is no follow up or in other words the habits or problems that come up continue to arise (for you and that person) and therefore it is harder to change habits. A hypothetical example I can think of not putting yourself in somebody’s else’s shoes is if  I had a friend that would constantly get criticized because he would show off too much or he would brag about his ability to to play sports (or any other endeavor). I have come to the realization that people are the way they are because that’s the way they choose to be and it is nothing more than a tiny part of their character. Now, let’s say that I told my friends not to be too hard on the guy since he might be pretty good or even in the slightest case that he may need reassurance that he was good at what he did. I then go to my friend and I let him that ‘hey these guys think you’re an arrogant , cocky sumbitch’. I let him that if he needs anything to let me know as he doesn’t have many friends at this moment. This can come in the form of talking, doing some activities, watching a movie, or whatever else comes to mind. I switch back and forth between keeping the peace between that one friend that I believe is a good person but the majority of friends that we keep is constantly ragging and gossiping about the guy’s personal life. This may be problems he has at home or just little pieces of information about his interests. In a total perspective, most of the talk is mostly negative which serves as a little bit of a instigator for more talk. I join and I soon find myself talking crap about the guy because that’s what my other friends are doing. I haven’t realized what I have done yet because I feel at this point that he doesn’t know anything so why bring it up to him? Me and my friend are hanging out one day realizing that everything is moving along smoothly only to see a touchy subject matter arise which is the separation of camps between ‘that group’ and the two of us. I start telling him that I was in the position to give him the advice that we are still friends and he asks me if I had joined in their conversation of badmouthing him. I realize that I have to fess up and I tell him the truth. This is where the tension starts getting real and it doesn’t end well. I start feeling really bad and I come to the conclusion that maybe it’s best not to talk to him for the time being. This is one example of how it is easy to not put yourself in someone’s shoes and giving advice is easy because you’re the center of it all. We start realizing that once we get the ball rolling on advice there really is no stopping so we look for an exit route that is simple. The person may be wired in their own ways so there really there is no solution for giving advice other than taking it yourself . I talked crap about my friend so, in reality I didn’t take my own advice of talking to the guy and instead joined my other friends in the hater parade. I fail in this perspective because you start seeing that advice is a two way street because that person expects the same results from you which is loyalty and respect. He has given you that same respect so it is best to put yourself in that person’s shoes and understand what they are going through. This is example #1 but #2 gets a little more complicated. Being selfless is one of the strangest, yet most unique way that advice comes about. When I talk about being selfless, I mean coming out and putting yourself before others. This would entail making someone else look better through words/and or trial and error. One of the prime examples I can remember from my life is someone asking for advice when it came to whether or not they should continue to be friendly in terms of how they approached the opposite sex. My friend happened to be female and she was always in this trap of guys thinking the female had a crush on that person. The advice I gave was that some guys take things the wrong way and all you want to be is a friend. This was selfless in my opinion because I did have her in mind when I said this but I myself have not been true to myself when it comes to this kind of subject. I wanted, at that time, to be helpful and truthful to my friend when it came to guys taking things the wrong way. Guys seem wired in a way that emotions tangle us up so much that the signals we get send us in many different directions. You don’t know whether to feel happy, lucky, upset, upbeat, sad, afraid, or positive all together. It sometimes seems like men and women go with what they know and this ends up being convoluted. I don’t take this advice myself because I’ve been searching for that one special girl for quite a while now but sometimes a girl being your friend can send you into a trip. I know the difference between a girl that likes you and a girl that ‘likes you’. I may not take this advice in being you and making friends because guys have different motives when it comes to love interests and friendships. At this time, I saw her nothing more than a friend but I always had it in the back of mind that I had to take care of her. It was a situation where my advice did matter to me but I knew that I wanted to be right in someone else’s case. I didn’t care what happened to me just to her in the long run. But, was I being selfish by wanting to be right about what I said? Maybe I was as the saying has come to surface in recent years of taking care of your own backyard. This is why it is so difficult to take your own advice because it isn’t for you but for someone else. One last example I can think of is when there is no follow up of the advice (i.e. trying to stay fit or losing weight), it is hard for the same habits to change. I have always had a habit of coming in late or leaving late for somewhere I have to be. I would always be late for school or work thinking that I would get there in time and slip in somehow. I noticed it as a very bad habit because it made the professors or people that were superior to me think that I didn’t care or I had no drive (at least that’s what I thought). When I started talking to a good friend of mine regularly, I noticed that getting early to a destination is much better because you have no pressure on you as time can move very slow or very fast depending on how you look at it. This was a discussion that we would have from time to time because he was much better at getting somewhere than I was. This, I believe was due to his ability to think and plan on his time instead of on someone else’s time. I believe that the time you spend planning is just as important as the destination that lies ahead of you because there are so many elements to a story that is ahead.  Getting somewhere on time or getting there on time has improved my emotional well being as well as my ability to be a better person as well. I have noticed that I think faster and more on my feet when I get to my destination on time. If there is not some sort of follow or change in habit you start to notice that advice doesn’t really matter and you have failed both yourself and that person’s advice. Taking advice and giving advice can seem difficult but if a person does it with intent and a goal in mind then everything should go smoothly. I have learned that doing something is much different than actually saying something in terms of advice. It is much harder to do something than it is to say something that sounds good on paper. You can tell an aspiring writer that his characters in his novels are too one dimensional and dull but that same writer may have the same issue(s) when it came to setting, character development, or the structure of the story that he/she is writing. As individuals, we want to succeed but if one large group of people succeeds together then there is more to toast to. I give the example of a losing baseball team that is, say in game 122, 52-70, and playing spoiler at this time. The veteran does his best to put up his personal stats but the young players on the team may look to him for leadership and virtue when it comes to their major league career. These players may or may not have a future in the majors but there is someone there that is there for advice. He may tell the players to watch out for the pitches down in if you’re a left hander or watching out for the pitches that go away for the right handers. A crafty veteran can be there for that advice even though he may just be playing to get HR’s, RBI’s, Walks, and what not. But, if the team ends up coming together you experience a much better environment and this is what is always thriving. If you guys giving each other advice, the sky may be the limit for all the players on the team as energy is endless and it may never end in this case.  There is a need to push through that adversity but this is what makes life exciting and dramatic as we all need a little kick in our step. I truly believe we want to see others succeed as I pointed out in the examples mentioned above. It matters very little how we are doing as that connection between two people matters much more in the long run. I would like to say that good advice can go a long way in life because when you take it and apply it you feel much better for having taken that advice. If you give that advice, and you are successful you may feel a bit overwhelmed because you have tasted that bit of victory but one has to remember being there for every little step is just as important. In the best case scenario, giving advice is important and without who knows where life would be heading because we are all social animals in one big bubble.