Bad advice
If you ask for an advice, you will be given advice. People around will always have opinions, even about things they have nothing to do with, because opinions is how people define who they are in the western cultures. Internet, in addition, can answer pretty much any question you ever had and that sounds great until you realize that there is a convincing answer for every option imaginable and you actually need to focus on the question, rather than the answers. In the end, it makes not difference what advices you get from the people around you, what matters is which of them you choose to believe.
We do not see the world as it is, we see the world as we are. Seeing new perspectives is a great way to expand your consciousness, but in most cases it is a terrible idea to base important decisions on someone else’s image of the world, because language is limited in the capacity to convey meaning and it is impossible to comprehend this image fully. Some questions may be small and some questions may actually have objective answers, but someone tells you who you are or how to best live your life in the future, listen carefully, think about it, but never believe.
So hey, let me share some more advices, which I hope most of you won’t listen to:
The problem is not the problem. The problem is the question.
Find people who you feel take time and energy to understand your question fully, in a way that you find meaningful. Real meaningful answers are almost never “yes” or “no”. They don’t take your line of thoughts and extend it in the same direction, instead, they turn you all your thoughts, that led to your current state of mind by 90 degrees and show the entire new dimension that you never noticed.
How the person lives, in many cases, is more important than what the person says. I am a designer and I may seek advice from other, more accomplished designers about how to create better products. Famous designers will be glad to speak about what made them successful and you will quickly find that in every single case, It was a completely different quality. Multitasking is bad, unless you are Oki Sato, who is working on 200 projects at the same time. Having a very clear goal is the most important thing, unless you are Youtube, which changed the entire concept and business model multiple times before being acquired by Google. Following you dream is stupid, unless you are Caysey Neistat. Do you want to live the same kind of life that the person, who is giving you advice has? Or do you want to own a rocket company, but also have nice leisurely weekends off? If you successfully follow someone’s advices, you will also inevitably master and internalize all the same flaws they have. Make sure you are ok with them first.
It’s not your fault if you know nothing. The teachers who blame you for not knowing something already are the reason you not know enough. Good short article about learning: http://www.stephanietolan.com/is_it_a_cheetah.htm Same thought system, different theme:
Good is bad. Bad is good. Nothing makes sense. Let’s just play. In the end nothing really matters. You came to this playground, you messed up many times, you laughed a few, but will die in not too distant future. And all of your fears, all of your thoughts, all of your questions and decisions will vanish from the world we now observe. It rarely makes any different what you actually choose and what we often want is encouragement and some person or idea to blame if things go wrong. Most of us begin our lives in smaller towns, doing simple tasks, much like video game characters in starting zones. We learn and explore for a while, but eventually get stuck and stop considering new possibilities. What difference is there between starting a company an fighting a boss in World of Warcraft? Between going to live in a different country and stepping into a portal to Outland in “The burning Crusade”? We buy the game with the sole purpose of exploring and fighting bosses, but we don’t pay for life and don’t see potential activities as interesting challenges to test the limits of this reality. So far all humans have died and you most likely will too, so be positive: all of your worries and decisions will perish and nothing you do will ever make any difference. Hug someone you love for even though the moment filled with feelings is short, at least the feeling will exist in the universe and it will be good. Here is some cute music to listen to while thinking:
