Unsolicited Advice...

Throughout life, we face struggles, make choices, learn, and develop as individuals. The quote "Learn from my mistakes" is often thrown about in conversations and I find it to be a completely invalid argument. You cannot learn from another individuals mistake. Personally, I look back at numerous choices I have made in my teenage/early adulthood years and say to myself, "I'll never do that again!". I learned from MY past. Observing others just makes me realize that the more you tell someone your opinion and what you believe they should do, will only make them R U N for the complete opposite.

Now, the catch to this is, that the advice I am writing about is UNSOLICITED (thank you to my Meme who broadened my knowledge of this), which means, unwanted, unnecessary, basically not asked for, e.g.; I walk into a store and a woman says, "You know that shirt would have looked much better on you if you had bought it in a green color." (Yes, this really happened)
First, I never confronted her and asked, "What do you think about my shirt?" If that were the case, I would have deserved her comment. I could not believe she had the nerve to say anything about my brand new shirt. Those are the times I wish people truly had a filter system placed into their brains which controlled their mouths!

Advice coming from family can also be a real pain in the behind, primarily due to the independence factor that comes with now being a "grown up". Now now now, the advice coming from them is out of love.. but it is almost the hardest to receive, for various reasons. First, they are your support, your love, and your backbone...so what they say holds a greater value to some degree and chances are you will not like what they say because as in my previous example, they will hold no filter with you. There are some angles where it could seem like they are trying to vicariously set up your life for you. I cannot lie, I have felt this way numerous times. When it comes down to it though, their advice probably means the most at the end of the day, but you will still end up choosing whatever is right for you and will make you happy. This is how we ultimately learn and grow. 

 This post was inspired by a rant from a good friend this morning about advice being thrown at her from an unwanted source and she was not sure how to deal with it. Bottom line is to just smile, nod and say thank you, knowing that you are an adult and will choose wisely for yourself. Do not cut out friends or family for telling you what they think, just realize that it comes with the territory.

I will close this with a little advice from me...
Just remember to stop relating your experiences and life lessons to someone who is not asking to hear your life story :)


-D


PS- Here is a great article I found online a couple weeks ago about advice...

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201012/unsolicited-advice-i-hate-it-you-hate-it-and-so-do-your-kids