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Isn’t life funny? Everyone around you has opinions on what
you should or shouldn’t do; on how you should or shouldn’t live your life. Even
me.
Guilty. As. Charged.
I would often sit around and remark on how “broken” other
people were. Truth is, that’s easier to do than admit that I, myself, was
broken, isn’t it? After all, no one wants to deal with their own shit. Not
really. It’s easier for us to talk about what is wrong (or was wrong) with
everyone else, instead of focusing inward and doing something my significant
other had told me to do awhile back, “Keep your head down and stay in your own
lane,” he said.
But here is the thing:
You will continue attracting the same people (just wearing
different faces) until you learn the lesson that they are sent to teach you.
And the same situations will continue to repeat and manifest themselves in our
lives until we finally say, “No more. I’ve already been here. I have already
learned this lesson. I’m not going to repeat it.”
Broken people give broken advice.
Same as broke people give broke advice. The financial and personal sides of
life add up so well, don’t they? If you wouldn’t take financial advice from
someone living paycheck to paycheck, why on Earth would you take life advice
from someone who doesn’t (respectively) have their own shit together in that
one little area? And why do you still subject yourself to surrounding yourself with broken pieces, when you haven't made yourself whole yet?
You wouldn’t. You shouldn’t. I won’t.
I don’t pay much heed to relationship advice from people not
currently in a happy, stable relationship. I often brush off advice on living
my life or parenting from people who don’t have kids, or people whose kids are
out of control, or from people who are making the same stupid mistakes that I
am, daily.
In my eyes, Robert Downey Jr. said it best:
“Listen, smile, agree. And then do whatever the fuck you were gonna do anyway.”
Perhaps another (more vanilla) way of saying it, is “follow your heart” or “listen
to your gut”, but I’m partial to Downey’s take on it.
I see it all the time. I hear it all the time. “So and so
gave me advice on this, and now I’m even more confused,” or “Someone said I
should…”
My reaction is always the same? “Do they have to live with
the consequences of your decision? No? Then why do you care?”
Mind you, I am not perfect. Far from it actually. I have a
million and a half quips, quirks, shortcomings and character flaws. In fact,
taking the time to list them would fill up more than a page or two. On the flip
side, I never try to hide my shit. I won’t lie about it. I’ll admit to being
flawed and broken and imperfect. I don’t receive validation from other people,
because I know, that at the end of the day that at least I am genuine about it.
Well, now anyway.
Flaws and all.
Here is a doozey for you, I was almost a mean girl again. Almost. (A couple of years ago, I made
Regina George look like Mother Theresa) But, finally, I snapped. I realized
that, no, I’ve already been through this lesson. I refuse to repeat it. And if
that means making snap decisions and cutting people off, I will do it. Every.
Single. Time.
Because I know me. I know that if I surround myself with
spite, I will become spiteful. I know that if I surround myself with dreamers,
I won’t do what I need to do. I know that if I surround myself with bullshit, I
become bullshit myself. Worse still, I am often guilty of amplifying my environment;
of taking whatever is going on and becoming like an emotional sonic boom, where
it comes out of each one of my pores. I can’t help it. That’s one my character
flaws. I often times become my (sometimes amplified) environment, which is one
reason I am so particular about safeguarding it. Every time I don’t, I end up
screwing up….in massive ways.
But here is the funny thing about the last 48 hours: I
learned something. A lot about myself. And I did a major accountability check....of myself. And while my words can be biting and
often harsh, they have to be sometimes. And I’m okay with that. While my bitch switch rarely gets
flipped, when it does….it’s probably best to duck and cover until the fallout
subsides. (Yes, I know this is yet another character flaw. Don’t act like you
don’t have them.)
However, something deeper has come from all of this. As much
hell as I have given my significant other for a few things, I find myself now
living (and loving) a small mirror of his life – cherishing my alone time, time
with my daughter, time with him and not getting in the middle of things that I
don’t need to be in the middle of. And I see it now, and it makes sense to me. But
it took all of this to push my nose straight into a lesson that I thought I had
learned, but hadn’t quite yet applied, of keeping my head down and staying in
my own lane.
If I want to move forward, I need to move up; surround
myself with people and places that are better, smarter and more talented than I
am; people I can learn from; people who inspire me to be better. I mean there
are times you have to be able to help people and lift them up, but daily?
Daily, I don’t need any more people projects. I don't have enough time to invest in this anymore, to committing to fixing anyone else (or trying to) of making anyone a project. Because I already have one.
Me.
And so do you. Yourself.
So the next time you are getting broken advice form a broken
person, first, make sure that person isn’t you…and second, remember that all
you really have to do is smile, nod and do whatever the fuck you want to do
anyway. Why? Because you are the only person alive who has to live with the
consequences of that. And that is the best piece of "advice" I have ever received, because when I stopped listening to everyone else, I was able to hear me again. Finally.
And when I did hear me again, this is the first whisper I heard: Try again. Fail better.
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