The best advice? Beware of advice #MFRWauthor

Whether it’s good or bad to give advice or receive it depends I think on how good the result ultimately turns out to be. Giving or accepting, we should beware, though. Giving advice is dangerous because our advice could be totally wrong and end up hurting someone. Or it could be right that time, and encourage the person and others to ask for our advice again, when we might not be so astute. Often we give the advice we would like for ourselves and it doesn’t fit the person asking at all. Or we don’t understand their situation fully.

I have given bad advice many a time. Not intentionally, but it still feels just as rotten when the person I doled out my opinion to is in tears. Or angry.

Receiving advice is just as tricky. I have accepted advice because it was what I wanted to hear and it turned out all wrong. I’ve also turned down advice for the same reason and with the same result. No matter how illogical, it’s hard not to blame the advice giver when that happens. “So-and-so told me I should/shouldn’t do such-and-such. It’s not my fault!” Of course it always was my fault.

The worst advice I was given as a writer is to write a particular kind of book. At the time, a lot of people were writing those books and having success, so I gave in. Unfortunately, I ignored one of Shakespeare’s famous lines: To thine own self be true (Hamlet). I gave up the effort, but not until after I’d spent much time and effort on it.

So what advice is best? When the advice is tested by time. Here are some examples from 25 Excellent Pieces of Advice That Most People Ignore.

• Take time to know yourself
• A narrow focus brings big results
• Don’t make assumptions
• Be your best at all times
• Don’t be afraid of being afraid

And here are a few goodies from the Bard. 

• Neither a borrower nor a lender be (Hamlet)
• What’s done cannot be undone (Macbeth) [So be careful when you decide what you want “done.”]
• Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none (All’s Well that End’s Well)
• Better a witty fool than a foolish wit (Twelfth Night)
• ‘Tis one thing to be tempted, another thing to fall (Measure for Measure)
• That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man/If with his tongue he cannot win a woman. (Two Gentlemen of Verona) [There is more than one interpretation of this statement to an erotic romance writer!]

All of this sage advice is great but I heard one more I’d like to share. I heard a TV interview with a terribly wounded soldier who found the strength to turn his injuries around and help others damaged by war. I could kick myself now because I can’t recall his name but I remember his advice, and it’s good.

You can’t always control your situation, but you can control your attitude about your situation.

Some advice to take to heart! May all your advice (given and received) be useful and fruitful, and from the heart.

Read the next blog in the blog hop by going here.

Dee
Only a Good Man Will Do: Seriously ambitious man seeks woman to encourage his goals, support his (hopeful) position as Headmaster of Westover Academy, and be purer than Caesar’s wife. Good luck with that!

Naval Maneuvers: When a woman requires an earth-shattering crush of pleasure to carry her away, she can’t do better than to call on the US Navy. Sorry, Marines!