Thursday 24 August 2017

Giving Advice

Giving Advice (c)
By
Michael Casey

I was talking to a friend today and they confided in me, so in order to give them some advice I in turn had to confided in them. This is how advice works at the best level. None of us like to be told what to do, but if we share experiences then we are more likely to listen.Life is make it up as you go along, there are no rules, same as love has no rules. If you both like it then do it.

If you are afraid of something you will avoid situations and so limit yourself and your life, because of fear. As Churchill said we have nothing to fear but fear itself. So if you are afraid of spiders you may never go in the old storeroom again, so you get your friend to go in there for you. But what happens when your friend is not there and you need the extra chairs stored there for your cafe? So will listen to their advice about which spider spray to use, or you'll train the cat to eat the spiders that you are so afraid of. Then you can have a fuller life fetching chairs.

This is obviously a simple example about communication and how to face your fears. The thing bout fears is that they do have to be faced. You may have been mugged up that dark alley but it is your route home, so what do you do? You may find a longer route how to avoid it, or go home in a group, take turns with your local martial arts guy guiding you part the way home. Again another simple solution.

The thing about getting advice you listen more if there is a connection with the person giving you the advice. People listen less to their priest because he doesn't know about getting drunk on a Friday night and seeing this girl or boy you fancy. He knows less about temptation because he is safe in bed with his cocoa while you are out dancing and prancing.

So disaster strikes, and you are left pregnant with a baby. So if you are a school girl who would you listen to the priest,or the girl who learnt the hard way. The girl has experience and pain on her side, so hopefully in secondary school the girls would listen to her advice. Don't drink, do use contraception, have a sober friend to watch over you. There is a difference between sex and love. Now would you listen to the girl or the priest, or sister Agnes is she was giving that week's morality talk? I think the voice of experience always wins. But it is always far better if you have your own common sense.

Sometimes you have peer pressure, and the answer to peer pressure, is always____ --- or other such language. You have to be strong enough to say NO to whatever it is. Sometimes its emotional blackmail from your own family members, you should look after granny or the cat or the farm, or whatever. IF this thing would hurt you in any way, emotionally or physically or spiritually. Then you have to build a wall around you and say NO. You have to protect yourself first before you can interact with anybody and anything. When you are happy and secure in yourself then you can think about helping others. Everything starts with self then radiates outwards, self is the foundation, and if the foundation is weak then the walls of self fall over. You cannot help anybody if you are not strong in yourself. And if you are strong and you still don't want to look after your nan's dog or your sister's ex-husband she feels guilty about. THEN JUST DO NOT DO IT.

Once you are strong and healthy in yourself then you can think about teaching Albanian to Trappist monks or whatever your speciality is. But if you are too weak don't weaken yourself even more just out of some misplaced sense of duty or guilt. You do things because you a re strong enough to do them and because YOU WANT TO. Same as mentioned earlier on a Friday night, you made love to that boy because he was nice and you think you loved him, not because you could. Fresh Cream Cakes are Naughty but Nice as Salmon Rushdie  wrote in his copyrighter's days BUT we have to learn to control our urges or we will be forever  fat.

Love yourself first, then you can love others, but we are only one, then with love we become two and together two can create families. But everything should be done with love not fear, and if you remember that then you will not go far wrong.  As somebody once said in All Things Love. And never accept any other request.



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