Advice

I have stopped giving people advice unless they ask for it… and, in fact, when people come to me for that ear to listen, that’s exactly what I do. Before I respond, I actually say, “do you want my opinion, or do you just want to vent?” I do not get offended when people say “I just want to vent,” because sometimes the best advice comes from not saying anything at all. By saying nothing, you are just agreeing to be that sounding board for someone while they work out their problems on their own. It’s magnificent because they’ll still thank you for “helping them,” even though all you did was sit there.

The change has come from the extraordinary amount of time I’ve spent sitting by myself, letting the air around me support my deepest thoughts. If you sit long enough, the answers will come. It is excruciating at times, because you’ll get impatient and want an answer RIGHT NOW… but maybe a problem doesn’t need one hour of sitting there. Maybe it needs ten. Maybe it needs ten months. Only you can decide that, but if you let your impatience take away your serenity, you will still be in the same place you were when you started.

It’s like when I start a movie and I’m already tired. I fall asleep before the end, and then I feel like I have to watch it from the beginning so that I can actually understand it. Believe it or not, that movie for me is Return of the Jedi. I saw it in the theater when I was five, but the only thing I remember about it is the scene with the Ewok battle. As an adult, I fall asleep every time they come on the screen.

Dana didn’t know this about me, and about eight years ago we were hiking to Angel’s Rest (in the Columbia River Gorge) and talking when she said, “it’s like that scene where Yoda dies.” I said, “YODA DIES?!?!?!?!?!?!??!” and promptly fell into a bush. Seriously. No preparing for the fall, just outright ass over teakettle.

I didn’t sit until the end. I didn’t finish the story.

When you spend time alone, you are finishing your story. The things that happen to you are the rough draft. Thinking about it is crafting the edges, making the changes, taking the behaviors you wish you could retract and thinking of ways to correct them.

Giving someone advice is robbing them of the chance to finish their own stories. Not only that, if they try what worked for you and it doesn’t work for them, now you’re up for the shitty friend award without even knowing it.

Avoid winning the shitty friend award. I have come in first place a few times in my life, and it’s just not enjoyable.

However, there are those times when you wish you could give advice because you care so much about the person that needs it. Think those things in your head. In fact, think them all you want… but you’re better off giving pseudo-advice out loud. By pseudo-advice, I mean things like:

• If you just sit there long enough, the answers will come.
• Take care of yourself- you’d be surprised at how much a bubble bath helps.
• Do you ever just walk, with no particular destination?
• Have you read any good books lately?

These are the things that people remember as helpful without giving you the chance to be right or wrong… because the truth is, your story is your own.

You crafted it yourself.