Advice on Advice Action

At one point in my time in New York I made a particularly fun friendship. It was very charged and dazzling in its difficulty to describe at the time. One where the boundaries were amoeba-like, and honesty was just a game we played like all the others. A truth or dare without ever naming it. And in this friendship I was seen as a straight shooter—something I had never been dubbed in my life till that point. It felt like a role I was offered to try on. Maybe I am a plainly honest person. Maybe I have shed my people pleasing, warm with shame, hide when you hear the keys in the door dna. New York was all about trying on costumes and so I put on the chaps.

My amoeba friend told me one day that what her best friend and our co-worker (who I had a crush on) really needed, was someone to just be brutally honest with her. To be told plainly the inescapable truth. That she would be awed and it would help her to heal. And so in some form or fashion I kept that notion in my head. I wouldn’t walk up locked and loaded, but at some point, maybe I would tell it to her plainly. Offer a homily, a shoulder to cry on, and set her free from her disillusions.

This of course was not how it went. How it went was that a month or so later, after a failed few dates, I was being yelled at in a coffee shop. Like in a movie (she is an actress, speaking of roles), in the way where people were literally looking at us, and I felt another truth hitting me. That my understanding of the situation was clearly quite off the mark. In my attempt to shoot straight, I forgot what shooting is, and learned something that a bit of listening would have illuminated quite quickly. That my target had zero interest in being proselytized (and zero interest in me, to be frank).

But it taught me an important lesson about advice. That it is best when it is asked for, and if it is not, you should tread very carefully. Did the actress grow from my telling of events? Who knows, maybe down the line some of the things I said shook something loose. But more likely those things were faced when she was ready, and the idea that I could take credit is nothing more than that--an idea.

When I was given unsolicited advice, advice about my life’s trajectory, did I take it well? Not usually, no. When my sister offered me unsolicited advice after a nice visit to New York, I felt judged and somewhat betrayed. I thought we had had a great bonding time, and then I was being told that I was a subject of concern, a cause of worry, that I needed to change. It hurt, but also, I never felt understood fully by my sister, so it also felt unhelpful. AKA, the exact scenario I underwent with the actress. Why would she feel understood by me, a casual observer and new friend to her old friend? Why would she feel receptive to my sermon titled “What's Best for You.”

I think that as people, we long to feel seen. It is what is truly so powerful about love, that you see someone so deeply that you also see past them. I am confident that the actress, just like me, is not afraid of advice. In fact, I think it can be a language of love, because it shows interest from a third party. Someone cares enough to try and help us, to pay tribute to our lives with their attention. But the key is that extra care, the time spent, the trust earned. Not the light tread of never upsetting someone, but the genuine desire to see the subject (devotion), to game out the problem as dictated by the subject(endeavor), and waiting until that person is ready (patience).

But what about outside influences? After all, the amoeba friend gave me the go ahead! Ultimately I think there are a million voices calling out with advice, but when you listen to the full chorus, so much of the noise is an overconfident announcement of id, or worse, a ploy to sell you something.

Let’s talk about one of the hardest to interpret pieces of advice there is. “Be yourself.” One thing I’ve realized over time is that being yourself is not so much this effortless thing (”when am I not myself?”) as it is a practice, and one that requires dedication and check ins. Showing respect to your wants and needs as much as your responsibilities. That scheduling time to write is not just something that’s hard to do, but something I need to be myself. Finding a social circle isn’t just hard because I haven’t found this hypothetical tribe of people, but also because I haven’t put the work in to see myself in those around me. Get myself in front of the right people, not in a business way, but in the business-of-being-me way.

It’s very easy to see the way you spend the hours of the day and the days of the week as summation in parts. That your Tuesday is your everyday. And while that’s an important realization as you are growing up--that you don’t have to hold yourself to the expectation that everything you do should be extraordinary, or even shared with the world--there is also so much more than the ingredients listed. So much of life is internal and yet so much of how we measure our lives comes from the idea of the outside.

The speaker at my nephew’s high school graduation (wow, I’m getting old), was a math teacher, who was deemed of sound enough mind to give advice. Enough so to give the graduation speech anyhow. He gave a lot of hard to disagree with advice, of the “be yourself” variety. But when he did get specific, he gave the rickety kind of advice my amoeba friend did, vague and overstepping at the same time.

He said it’s important to hear both sides. That actually both FoxNews and CNN are good, and you should make sure and watch them both. I found it such a funny thing to say in a graduation speech, and at the same time I had heard it my entire life. I think if he a straight shooter (like I thought I was once) he would have encouraged the graduating class not to be political. Because that’s what advice like that is about. Don’t go too far, don’t read too much, you might stray a little far from the herd. 

To dip back into the chorus of advice, this is not a presentation of Id but an advertisement. A truly western and American call for inaction. Everyone is right, and everyone is wrong, but at the end of the day, we all gotta get along, regardless of what those people believe and represent. When his advice was personal it was about the power of decisions, when it was communal it was about achievement (he also did a weird thing where we lied about something and then chastised the audience for believing his lie, giving a nod to and abusing the power of public speaking in one fell swoop).

At the end of the day, the speech was well received by most but me. For the simple fact that I didn’t find any of his advice to have the care, the canny, the patience that wisdom requires. It won’t matter much, I sure don’t remember whatever our high school speaker said (and I literally gave one of the speeches). And one does not call for revolution at a pta funded  high school graduation ceremony. But in a sea of noise, in a hyper-individualized society, as systems are failing all around us, I can't be the only one looking for people to gather the hems of their humanity, to be personal, to show they care, to tell their story, and do quite the opposite of proscribing a 50/50 corporate media diet. To talk about being alive and what living is like, what you love and who loves you and how you loved them best. And certainly it will be less well received than a speech of middle roading, and got your nosing, don't stick your neck out, and balance your bookings.

We're going to have to care about each other a whole lot more than that. And we're going to have to be honest. And the best way is maybe not always straight shooting, but to lead with the heart, open the hutch to what you have inside, take out your wedding china and start serving.