Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Actions not words (#1341)

The blatantly illogical meme of "do as I say and not as I do" has no place as a response to anyone. Those who think that they have "figured out" life and spend all their time telling us how to live it need to close their mouths and put to action in their lives those things they would have us do. The word hypocrite comes to mind as well as charlatan. It is fine to describe actions one has taken to give advice to others facing similar circumstances and situations. But it is not fine to give advice to others when the actions are foreign to the giver of the advice or contrary to the givers actions. We need to be listening to the people in our lives who are actually aware and understand the complexity of our questions. Is it a laziness on our part to find advice like we would fast food? Or is it something to do with our allowing ourselves to be vulnerable to others that we don't feel a kinship or comfort with? I don't know why we insist on asking for advice from people who have some notoriety and little substance, but it seems to be the rage. No one has life figured out and if we all just trust our own good instincts most all of our problems will resolve themselves. When that is not enough at least get several people to give you advice before taking just one solution and running with it. People do not generally seek to build their characters throughout their lives, instead they have hit a comfortable plateau and believe that they have arrived when in actuality they are still many levels of perspective below from seeing the top. Life is too short for making wrong decisions and wasting time living with them, when a little time spent finding a diversity of answers to choose from saves more time in the end and can have a better outcome. 

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