Advice is a very funny thing. Sometimes I feel like I get so much advice that my head is going to explode. My big problem is that I'm so scared of letting people down that I want to follow all the advice that is given to me. Do you know how hard that is to do?
It should be a simple task, 1. Get advice 2. Take advice 3. Be wildly successful!
But many times it just doesn't seem to end up that way.
One common reason may be that people who give advice give it from a very personal place. They take a sample of their life and tell you what they have learned. But you're not them. You're life will not work out in the exact same way. So why take advice at all? And how can you let someone down by taking their very personal advice and saying "Wow, well that really didnt work for you. I don't want my life to end up anything like yours so I'll just do something else."
And then there's the problem of multiple and overlapping advice. If you were ever in college then I hope you know what I mean. If you dont know, then you might want to whip out those old notes and look at everything that was told to you. I'm not trying to challenge the concept of teaching, nor am I saying its a bad thing. However, when two different teachers have two different visions of what you're life should be, it can be a hard thing to translate what you want. You're working hard, trying to do what is right according to someone, and BAM! someone else tells you something entirely opposite!
When I get overloaded with suggestion, I tend to get tired and a little agitated and want to do something wild and crazy in response to everyone's advice like move to Russia. Or France. Or China. Or something.
I guess what I'm trying to say I've learned is that the best teachers know they dont have the answers. Those are the people that I try to cling to. I love when a person can just say, "huh, I don't know." In theatre that can be a very rare thing. Maybe thats why I'm so drawn to it. I would so much rather figure something out with someone. Even if its something they already know, like in the teacher student scenario, I would rather take their knowledge and put it with yours to create a greater knowledge and understanding for both parties.
So in that light, nothing in this blog is supposed to teach you anything. Heaven forbid someone learn something from me. I should be the "what-not-to-do" advice. Its like that excerise show that was always on in the 80s. You know, there were three little discs of different heights with people working out on them. They were supposed to be High, Medium and Low intensity, but by the time it got to the Low it just looked like something completely different. Well while the High and Medium are doing some sort of jumping jacks, I'm the one knitting. And thats ok with me.
Edna Vs. Disney's A Christmas Carol
16 years ago
2 comments:
As you point out, one of rarest traits in our fellow humans is the ability to say "I don't know."
I have found that is true especially in business. People always want sound authoritative, to the one who knows, so they just make up crap so they can sound like they know what they're talking about... but they don't.
People just need to learn to be humble and say, "I don't know."
Brilliant.
What Siddhartha Gautama learned while he was out on the river boat was that our truest learning is from our own experience. "Trust no one to be your teacher." Of course the world around us offers so many opportunities to learn-- languages, people, food, conversations, but at the end of the day some of the most important questions just lead to more questions not answers. In the biz-- you are so right that everyone has the definitive response. The truth. The right answer. But as the hymn so eloquently puts it, oh say, what is truth?
I really like this entry! its really deconstructed and thought provoking. I'll follow your advice though and not learn anything from it lol. One thing I do know is this-- you are awesome.
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