A lot of the time, many of us have a hard time trusting ourselves. We look to parents, friends, teachers and any other person we have a relationship with to give us advice. These people always have advice about what we should do- to, in the end, make our life a happy one.
They advise that we should go to college and that we should take one job over another, and maybe that we should date that "nice" guy in our math class. All this advice, I truly believe comes from a place of good intentions, but I'm going to tell you something that is kind of scary to say, but I truly believe- no one knows the answers. Your parents, your best friends you calling crying asking for advice, your spiritual leader, all don't know.
We all give advice based on our own personal experiences but in the end, we are all unique people. We all experience death, loss of a job, a failed relationship; things that are common to the human experience. They may even be similar to a good friend of yours, but they will never be the same.
This is where the problem arises. We rely too heavily on the experiences of others that we don't see that there is probably a different or better way (for us personally). It feels really good for someone to empathize with what you are going through, but it often turns from empathy to reliance.
The prospect that we have to figure out our lives on our is a scary one, and by no means and am I saying that you should discount what others have gone through. That would be like ignoring all the research done on finding a cure for a disease while searching for a cure for that disease.
This is something I find myself doing often. I will come across a problem I don't know how to solve and yearn for someone to have the answer- so I ask, and I ask all the different types of people I have access to. I exhaust my resources, and what I have found it that I am never truly satisfied with what I am able to take away.
That is why I feel like considering the advice that comes from our own minds may be the best advice that we will ever get. We know our gut feelings and soft spots better than anyone else. Trust in that.
For many it may not come naturally to take your own advice, so next time that you feel like you don't know what to do, try a little pretending... What if someone came to you with the exact problem? What would you tell them? When people say practice what you preach, advice would be a good place to start.
A lot of the time, we seek for our ideas and problems to be affirmed or repudiated, but we actually know the answer. Put more trust that inner voice, it's probably more rational than you think.
