The Age of Advice

Perhaps it is because we are in the middle of Script Frenzy and amazing industry-insider Cameos abound. Or because I am soliciting pep talks from beloved published authors (six have said “yes!”) to cheer on our November novelists this fall. Or because I am getting married in a few months, and am asking every friend, family member, delivery person, barista, neighbor, shrubber, and companion animal for their sagest relationship advice. Reasons aside, I am noticing a distinct uptick in the amount of interesting, varied, and uniformly valuable advice pouring into my skull on a day-to-day basis.

And that is just the solicited input! You can’t turn on the TV or open your mailbox or hop on the internet without being inundated with platitudes, suggestions, and admonitions for how to do something better, faster, longer, more mindfully, or with greater abandon.[[MORE]]

Apparently I need more (or less) vitamin B. I am too self-centered. I am not self-preserving enough! To thine own self be true. Do unto others… Share and share alike! Stop and smell the roses. “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” Or my most recent favorite (this on a T-shirt) “Life’s too short to eat crappy meat.” Amen!

And don’t even get me started on unsolicited wedding advice. Turns out the whole world knows exactly what the reception centerpieces should look like but me. (I hear from my elders and betters that this unsolicited advice thing gets worse when you have kids…)

So in the tradition of Too Much Advice (was that a Berenstain Bears book?), I am turning to you for more.

What words do you live by? And how do you internalize all the wisdom the world has to offer while filtering out the rest of the noise?

-Lindsey

Photo by Flickr user spratmackrel