I remember it well. My friend was going through a nasty relationship and she asked for my advice. We talked and talked about how this guy was mistreating her and how he wasn't giving her what she needed and how she wished for more. And I with all the love in my heart and compassion in my soul I gracefully said, "dump the idiot."

We decided together that he wasn't right. When she came back to me the next day I was expecting to do some cheering up, but instead she was full of happiness telling me that she had been freaking out about nothing. That they were going to make it work, and that she had been wrong about him. It kind of left me feeling like I had been having an out of body experience the day before. It left me looking around and reeling through memories saying, "Who on earth was I talking to yesterday, because it wasn't this chick!"

This is such a common occurrence because the truth is that asking for advice just means asking for options. I am stuck. I don't know what to do and I need to talk it through with someone. Your option is great, but it doesn't feel right for me right now. It doesn't bring me any joy or comfort or any feeling of resolution or freedom. But you telling me that has cleared my mind and now I have a new option. This is pretty much how I feel about asking for advice on food.

I love food, I want to taste all the food, so food is an area I always need advice on, because I love it all so much that I can just never decide. So, when I ask my friend "should I get cookie dough or butter pecan ice cream,” if she says cookie dough I might be disappointed because really deep down I wanted butter pecan.

Sometimes you just need to hear someone else say the wrong thing out loud to shock your heart into waking up and saying "oh shit, I don't want that at all. Let's do whatever is not that!" If I’m disappointed when I hear that I should get cookie dough, it means that I really want butter pecan. If my friend went home and thought about breaking up with her boyfriend and it left her feeling all the emptiness and none of the freedom, then she really wants to keep her boyfriend.

It has taken me a long time to be OK with people not taking my advice when they ask for it. It always felt a little like a slap in the face, like my advice sucks and that’s why they aren’t taking it. Now I know that isn’t it at all, and strangely, I actually feel good when someone doesn’t take my advice now, because it means that they were able to work out their feelings on their own. I gave them a little nudge, but they were so certain that they wanted something else that they made their own decision.

There are a lot of people giving advice out there, but we don’t have to take any of it. You aren’t forced to read an article about who to vote for, or what ice cream to get, or break up with your boyfriend because your friend told you that you should. You don’t even have to take my advice right now! You can choose whatever you want, even if it pisses somebody off. They’ll get over it, and hopefully they will see that your blatant advice ignoring is actually really fantastic.