The last few weeks have had me reflect on a number of things and one thing that I have been thinking about is unsolicited advice. Do you ever get to a point in your life where everyone thinks what is right for you and they barely know what you actually want? Well, the story of some of our lives.
I have found myself on the receiving end of unsolicited advice from family, friends, and colleagues and in all honesty, I am sick and tired of these extra voices that want to live my life with me. Whilst I understand that some do it from a point of concern, I feel like it is quite invasive to offer advice if it is not asked for. It is very wrong to assume that people will make the same mistakes you’ve made because somehow you can see through their future.
Lukasz Laniecki shared a very interesting quote, we are all entitled to our own share of mistakes and learning in life. No one should take them away from us. Not even our parents. This is something I agree with because most of my most profound life lessons have come from mistakes. Not from perfection or from following someone’s how-to live life manual. People in our lives fear the mistakes that we will make and they focus less on themselves because somehow, a certain achievement makes them feel entitled to offer you unsolicited advice.
Recently, I traveled and met people from a culture where minding your own damn business is the order of the day, how I wish people would learn a lesson or two! One thing I will tell you, in the words of Trevor Noah is that I can only know where I am now in life and that’s what I have learned to enjoy. So, stop asking me what I want ten years from now to the point of almost predicting how certain parts of my body will function. Stop asking what I envision in my relationships or what I plan with my career. I am living a day at a time, planning for what is within my control and slowly peeling the layers as I go.
What bothers me most is how unsolicited advice comes from people with no experience with your situation. Someone who has probably listened to a few YouTube videos and watched a few motivational speakers coming at me with the “you know by now you should have,” kind of crap is some entitlement I lack a good word for. It is funny when they have no idea what you even want with your life and they feel entitled to actually tell you what you should have achieved at a certain point in your life. And the same people will listen to another motivational speaker saying, “your time is coming, be patient” then they will shamelessly tell you “you are running late,” come on, how about focusing on your life for a minute?
There is no specific manual on how you should live your life and no one has the right to actually tell you how to live. You will make mistakes and that is just life! You learn and move on. And if someone comes at you with the “I told you so line,” honestly, they can go…You can fill that gap for yourself.
Stop trying to control people’s life with unsolicited advice. Stop trying to make them feel insignificant because they are not living life the way you are. Stop making them feel underachieved because they do not have their finances, relationships, and even life in order. We are all learning to live every day. We are all here to experience a new 24 hours, so just because your days on this earth have been longer than another’s, we all have the same new 24 hours every day. It is time to live and live life on your own terms. You deserve it.
Until next time,
TMV.