Advice to Self: Don’t Give Advice (even to yourself)

Whenever I can, I try not to give advice. Rarely is my opinion about someone else’s life necessary, accurate or helpful. Even when people directly ask for advice, they don’t really want it. They may want to be listened to. They may want help in thinking about options. But nobody really wants or needs me to tell them what to do—and that includes me.

I am often filled with well-meaning advice for myself. I am sure I should be more of this and less of that. I should be more organized. I should walk every day at 11:00. I should set blocks of time in my calendar to make sure I’m progressing on my new book. These are all good ideas, but I have learned that my advice is always opinionated and partial. Life is much more interesting than simply trying to get myself to do what I think I should be doing.

I am continually amazed at the mysterious suffering and wisdom that pervade our lives. There is simply no solution to life and yet freedom and possibility abound. Good ideas and clever interventions are just good ideas and clever interventions—they don’t touch the deeper currents that catch us up so completely in the ebb and flow of actual experience. Things are not what they seem to be—or rather things are not just what they seem to be.

The other day a friend said she was appreciating that life is much more impressionistic than she had realized. I thought this was a lovely way to describe this quality of life I am pointing toward. When you look closely at an impressionistic painting, the water lilies that are clearly evident from a distance turn out to be just splotches of paint as you get closer. These delightful daubs of green are thick and viscous. They delightfully dance on the white weave of the canvas that holds them in place. Back away and the lilies reappear—floating serenely on Monet’s imaginary pond—that was definitely not imaginary for him.

Life is like this. Fear, anger, sadness and confusion are not what they present themselves to be. They are not monolithic, true and never-ending. Nor are insight, clarity and connection the final resting place. They are all true and important. But nothing is as solid as it seems. Everything is vivid and provisional. We should cry when we are sad and laugh when we are happy. But it can be comforting to remember that the seeming solidity of the moment is a trick of the eyes.

This is all preamble to my confession that I gave advice to a friend yesterday. I couldn’t help it and I tried, even as I was advising, to be as provisional as possible. I advised him to leave the protected confines of his house and spend more time outdoors. I told him to wander in the woods and look up and the sky—to allow himself to receive the vast light of the universe into his heart. I was so inspired by this advice that I told him that I suspected it was just as much advice for myself as for him.

I had some time yesterday afternoon and I could have gone into the woods as I had so wisely recommended, but I didn’t. I just took a book of Wendell Berry poems out onto the side deck for a better view of the flaming maple tree across the street. I sat there flipping to the familiar poems on the dog-eared pages. I looked up again and again trying to receive the message of the brightly colored tree.

No revelation or burst of insight or sudden clarity appeared. But it was lovely to sit for a little in the warm overcast of the afternoon in the midst of this beautiful falling world.