Heed Your Own Advice

One day without swearing. Nothing changed. And no one noticed. So I got something else to write about.

For years, people have come to me for someone to talk to. This started back in my jr. high days. Mainly because I was too shy to talk to a lot of girls in school, so I would find them all online and chat. This trend continued for much of high school and into college. I was always more comfortable talking in qwerty form. Maybe because it gave me a chance to always think out what I would say, even if it wasn't always the right thing to say. Maybe it was because people didn't have to look at me when they talked. Maybe cuz people just knew where to find me, which made me feel welcome. Maybe not.

But for years I sat and listened (read) to kids that would confide in me, and depend on me to offer some sort of insight into a situation where they may have been a little too far in the forest to see the trees. I did a decent job in high school. A better job in college. In no attempt to sound vain, many people have told me that I give phenomenal advice. Once, a good friend had a friend with a problem. I had never met this girl. She told me her story. I analyzed the situation, and gave about a five minute recap of what I understood to be going on, and gave her some pretty sound words of advice. Not gonna lie, I am proud of this moment.

But there is a catch, There's always a catch.

Sometimes when you are so good at giving something to everyone else, you don't tend to keep any of it for yourself. Sometimes even when you seem to have all the answers, you can't find any to actually apply to your life.
Sometimes as often as someone says you have a talent, you can't buy into anything you're saying.

Sneaky foreshadowing aside, this is what seemed to happen in my life. As much as I could dish it out, I was never able to apply this 'advice to live by' to the life I was living. It was so easy to listen to some one's problems and address the leak in the dam. But when I got introspective, even if I had a good idea where the leak was, I never was able to plug it. I think that time is running out.

I'm finding my own footsteps these days. I mean, how could I continue to give people advice if I was never strong enough to follow the words I said. I was going to look up a Scrubs quote where Elliot says almost the same thing, but I couldn't find it and didn't want to burn too much time.

But I can honestly say that now, I am taking things one day at a time. I am staying out of my own head (and when I'm not, I know it, and admit I need to get out of there). I'm relaxing. I'm smiling more. I'm continuing to look at things from all angles. I'm trying reeeally hard to not look too closely at everything... forgetting what I learned in school. After being taught for years to pull as much as I could out of as little as I see, and even trying to do that as I write, sometimes you need to step back from the art. Chuck Palahniuk says "the trick to forgetting the big picture is to look at everything close up." Well the trick to forgetting everything close up is looking at the big picture.

So while it may be so hard to heed your own advice, I can tell you, after years, I am finally falling into line. And the payoff is lucrative.