The Advice You Want To Hear

The Advice You Want To Hear: Stop doing this to that, and a whole bunch of other things. Advice comes to all of us in bucket loads. Sometimes you ask for it, but a measurable amount is unsolicited. It's usually delivered with, "You should." And we all seem to get hit with "in my opinion." Which somehow is meant to soften the advice. What about one of my all-time favorites, and I probably use it way too often, and it's probably annoying, but here you go. "It appears to me." Get ready for a soft landing when someone says that to you before they let you have a slew of their advice.

I doubt that humans would ever have survived if there wasn't someone more knowing, more experienced, and generally looking out for us that didn't provide actionable advice. Soliciting advice from others usually starts by asking our parents questions. Well-meaning as they may be, you can look back and say to yourself maybe that wasn't the right advice for me. But then again, their advice, more often than not, saved you from an unhappy outcome.

Is searching for advice in the online world valuable? Yes? No? And a whole lot of maybe yes and maybe no. Who can remember the fortune-telling Magic Eight Ball? It's now been turned into an app. There you can squander your need for advice every minute of the day. May I give you some advice? Don't do it.

Advice is cheap. It seems like, or better yet, I should say, "It appears to me." That judging from the volume we are exposed to, it's hard to place a monetary value on it. Advice is readily available, solicited, and unsolicited. We all love to give our opinion, conveniently shared with some cagey advice attached to it.

Thank you for sticking with me thus far. Now for the finale. The Advice You Want To Hear. "You are going to be okay." It's only six words, but delivered by someone you know and trust. It can change any challenge you may be facing, especially if it's given with love, kindness, and understanding for who you are and what you're going through. Life's challenges can and often overwhelm. You can say to yourself, "I'm going to be okay." And that's a good start, but if you're lucky enough to have a friend or loved one that proclaims to you that "you're going to be okay." Believe them because it's nearly always true.

"The advice I sought often passed me by. I was too busy giving myself unproven and often unreliable advice. Destiny changed all of that for me when a caring friend looked me in the eyes and said, "You're going to be okay." 

Rod Jones Artist-Writer