Advice is a universal aspect of life. Be it during the day-to-day or over the
course of tyme, a lot of guidance is steered in our direction. Some of this advice is good and some of it’s
of no use. Some of it’s given with the
best of intentions and, sadly, some of it’s offered with less than honorable
intent. A lot of tymes we take advice at
face value if it comes from a trusted source, but some tymes we take advice
because it’s what we want to hear, not necessarily what we need to hear.
Regardless though of tyme, intentions and sources, if we consider it, listening
to all the advice that other people have for us really negates the need to think
for ourselves. Of course such an
approach to living life is, well, ill advised.
It’s true, the advice line as an all day, every day entity
in life that has many channels and while we need to be aware of it, we should
not be addicted to it. There are tymes
to tune it in and tymes to turn it off.
There are tymes to change the channel and tymes to hit the record button
for later use. Of course, discerning which action to apply when can prove
difficult. Just like most missions in
life there is some trial and error involved, but practice greatly improves our
chances of getting it right.
So what are the proper practice techniques for handling the
advice line? I’m sure it’s different for
everyone, but for me, well, I seem to use the archive technique – or perhaps it
uses me because it usually happens when I least expect it. For example, the other day I was tasked with
a rather large project of adding labels to envelopes. Oh I know, not a huge task on a normal scale,
but this related to a mass mailing, so the effort was far more considerable. As I sat at my desk, peeling and sticking my
stacks of labels I admittedly began to grow weary of my duty and, shamefully,
laziness ensued.
I decided, or rather my weariness convinced me, to relax in
my chair and place the labels with one hand as I rested a bit. As you may have deduced with such weariness
came a lack of precision and after a few, well, not so straightly placed labels
some of my archived advice line recordings started playing through my mind.
Every recording advised the same thing:
Use two hands.
That bit of advice was a common theme in my younger
life. It was offered in regard to
everything from learning to drink from a cup, ride my bike, and catch a ball to
learning to drive a car, type on a computer and play the guitar. Of course it
had different applications depending on the situation. Two hands on a cup was meant to steady me
while using two hands to play the guitar was meant to remind me that more could
be accomplished if I focused on what each hand could do separately as well as
together. The underlying element however
was the same; using two hands made it possible to get the job done and do it
right.
As my advice line recordings resounded in my mind, I took a
deep breath, straightened my posture and I went back to my task using the much
more effective, two handed, labeling method. Then, as I sat there sticking
away, it occurred to me that the advice I remembered didn’t just apply to tasks
in life, but also to life as a whole.
As we walk through life there are many obstacles to stumble
over. Using two hands in such cases is
simply a way to, perhaps, cushion the blow of our fall, but if we walk through life
already using two hands, we will never fall.
How you ask? When one of the two hands is God’s. When we walk through
life holding God’s hand He is right there with us to steady us when we stumble
and help us accomplish things that we simply could not accomplish with merely
our own hands.
I couldn’t help but smile as I finished labeling my large
stack of envelopes and pondering the new meaning of my archived advice
recordings. I realized that while my advice
line can get bombarded with useless and misguided advice, it also receives the
helpful and applicable guidance I need to get me through life. Of course discerning
which advice to use, keep, throw away or record is a continuous undertaking, but
from now on, I’ll be sure to use two hands in the process.
