unsolicited advice about taking (un)solicited advice

The source of the “self-help” genre dates back centuries and I am not qualified to write an historical or psychological analysis that answers why people are drawn to unsolicited methods of self-improvement. But no one can deny that people are prone to seeking advice from strangers who claim to know their individual circumstances without ever having met them, right? On the flip side, no one can deny that there are folks who think they know your individual circumstances well enough to conglomerate all of their advice into a handful of categories, assuming you can self-identify with one of them? Or something like that??

One of the coolest things about your life is that you are the only one who can and will ever live it. That is crazy, guys. That means it’s all yours to figure out what to do with it. One way this uninterrupted, existential, nonstop (insert word similar to “infinite” or maybe “dreadful”) autonomous state plays out in real time is how you make decisions. You can acquire as much knowledge about the circumstances surrounding your decision and you can pool together advice from all your friends and loved ones, but YOU have to make the decision and YOU have to live with that decision. In the process of deciding, you might apply some of the advice you’re given while discarding the rest of it. You might ignore the advice altogether. You might prolong the decision-making part until the circumstances change and then you have to go back to square one. But it’s all on you, baby. And here’s the kicker: once you make the decision, you have to execute. Press the button, pull the trigger, rip the bandaid, etc.

Typically a decision arises when you are having to make a change of some sort:

I’m hungry, so I have to change that by deciding what to eat. I need more money so I have decide how I am going to acquire more income. I am unhappy in my relationship so I have to decide what to change about it or me.

The spectrum of breadth, depth and severity of the decisions that we all have to make in our lifetime (I am realizing) is literally MASSIVE. So it gets a little sticky when other people think they can tell you (literally YOU) what to do, how to do it and when to do it. I have been in a constant battle with myself and with social media to find some sort of balance with the algorithm. Regardless of how many dog and cat videos I watch, my Instagram algorithm refuses to let me live my life without reprimanding me for not living it perfectly and always in my total best interest. As I get older (and I am not old to be clear), I am realizing that everybody has a different opinion on what is “best” for you. Trust that they all have your best interest in mind, surely. But it doesn’t change the fact that they, quite simply, are not you and will never ever know what it’s like to be you.

SO, where does that leave us?

A thought experiment: imagine if every person on the planet made it their full-time job to avoid making a mistake, hurting someone’s feelings, and hurting their own feelings in search of perfection, of doing life right, of becoming the ultimate model of success, of assuring that they are lovable... We’d all be doped out and chronically ill!!

We have work to do. Or rather, let me speak for myself: I have work to do. I have to return to my intuition as the source of what I know to be true about what I need, what I want, how I feel, and who I am. The algorithm wants to destroy the relationship I have to my intuition. People who do not have my best interest in mind also seek to destroy this relationship. Influencers who yell at me through the screen to make a certain decision DON’T KNOW ME. And I won’t let them manipulate me into thinking otherwise.

Own your mistakes. Own your regret. Own your life. Learn from it, don’t mitigate it.

The hard part is sitting in the anxiety of trusting your intuition. That’ll have to be a conversation for another day.