My Best and Worst Advice

I could probably do a list post for this only that it is hard for me to remember the exact advice I've been give through life, or can’t remember exactly which elements of my life were based on advice. So to avoid another insanely long post, I've just decided to look at the best and worst piece of advice I've ever been given was, because these are the two that I would most want to share.

Best

Well actually, there should be a tie for this one. The best piece of advice I’ve ever been given, and this wasn’t directly given, more something that’s been stated repeatedly on different shows I’ve watched – live. It sounds obvious, I know, but you have to live. Now, some people believe we only have one life, some believe we go elsewhere when we die, others believe we come back here, some believe we go elsewhere and then come back here. Whatever your belief, I think it’s important to live your current life here to its fullest. If you have a dream do what you can to achieve it, don’t be afraid to take chances, use death as motivation rather than a deterrent (that’s not to say forget completely about safety), enjoy what you have, see the beauty in the world, and be happy. That’s the advice I’m living by now and it’s great, and not that hard.

The second best piece of advice I’ve been given, it’s so cheesy and overused by this point, but be yourself. That also works wonderfully though, although I’ll probably make an individual post on this one.

Worst

This one was actually given to us in university by a motivational speaker, and though I can see where he’s coming from with this one, all I could think about was how much I disagreed with it. ‘Lock the past away’, take all the bad things that have happened to you, lock them up in your mind, and forget about them. For one thing, that to me just sounded like repression, and that is really unhealthy. I understand the point about moving forward and not letting the past bother you, but you can’t just forget about the bad things that have happened. That would mean it happened for nothing.

Really bad things can happen, and I know as bad as the things I had to go through were, there are a lot of people who had a lot worse. But no matter how bad it gets, I believe you should hold on to it, just a little. Yes, do what you can to recover and move on, but don’t forget, use it, become a better or stronger person because of it. Doing that actually makes the past easier to live with, and makes you a happier person too. It also helps reduce negative feelings like regret. It’s the past, good and bad, that made you who you are now. Forgetting it means forgetting yourself.