Updates and Challenges
I was tagged by alhenaalana to participate in a three day quote challenge. I’m breaking the rules by not nominating three new bloggers every day, to participate, because quite frankly I don’t know any who’d care to be nominated. But today, and tomorrow and the next, I’ll happily bless you with some of my own (dubious) wisdom. The first piece of which is the rule I developed for myself, as a child: never take advice from anyone you don’t want to be more like.
In my case, I grew up without any sort of de facto authority figures. My own parents weren’t exactly great role models and, honestly, some of the biggest mistakes I made as a child came from trying to follow their advice–and their example. It was wrenching for me to realize that they were toxic and, indeed, the degree to which they were toxic. Their lives revolved around rage, and disillusionment, and more rage, and doing whatever they had to–no matter how illegal or immoral or just plain disgusting–to feed their respective habits. And, like most people who’ve never accomplished anything meaningful with their lives, they thought they were the world’s greatest experts. On everything. And spent a lot of time lecturing me on “what people do,” and what other people were doing wrong, and all the things (mainly cleaning up after them and not being so forthcoming with the outside world about what went on at home) I should be doing.
To…turn out like them? I started thinking, long before I probably should have, about what advice really is and who gives it and why. You can tell a lot about a person’s motivations by how their own life is going. Not all advice is kindly meant; some is meant to sabotage, and is given out of jealousy or even simply out of that person’s narcissistic desire to look in the mirror and feel successful. Even though they aren’t. Their advice comes from a place of competition. And other people, even if their advice comes from the best place, they simply may not know what’s best for you.
People take their own advice, I realized. People who sit around their houses all day feeling resentful that the world isn’t being handed to them on a platter, people who rise with the dawn and milk cows…they’re all living according to their own worldview. If you can’t trust people because they’re family, or if–as was the case with me–you keep being sent to live in new places, where you meet new people, you don’t have the luxury of context. But you do have tools at your disposal.
Yes, it takes time to get to know people. And to feel comfortable with new people, places and things. And nothing, of course, teaches like time. But, at the same time, you have to start somewhere. Every explorer needs a compass. And this was–and is–mine. And now it’s your turn: in lieu of tagging you, I’m asking you, readers, here, to share your own compasses. What quotes, aphorisms, ideas, or teachings have been the most meaningful, in helping to guide your journey?
