Advice on Giving Advice
Disagreement does not have to be disagreeable.
Just as one person loves one food, and another loves another, what is the argument? There is none. Difference of opinion and difference of experience are perfectly allowable.
The same way, one can have a thought different from another’s. What is the fuss about? No one said there has to be agreement in order to be agreeable. Be agreed on free choice.
Surely you don’t believe it is for you to tamper with another’s life? Surely you don’t consider yourself such an expert in life that you would ask that someone else do as you say?
Let people make their own mistakes, if, indeed, mistakes they be. What is a mistake for you may be right for another. The relative world is not absolute. It is relative.
All a person can do is follow his own heart. He cannot follow yours. You are not always successful in following your own heart. What is there, beloveds, about life that has to be correct or designated as correct? What judgment is this?
To express your opinion is one thing. To expect your opinion to be adhered to is another.
What seems advisable today may not be tomorrow.
You wear different clothes in winter than in summer. What is correct in winter isn’t in summer.
Each person on Earth is free to live his own life. He is even free to make his own mistakes. You may not know what is a mistake and what is not. But you, beloveds, are always mistaken in attempting to govern another’s life.
You cannot foretell what is right action for another. Do not even try. Care without meddling. Send out your good wishes. Good wishes usually work better than advice.
There is an infinity of choices for everyone to choose from.
What you see as a practical choice is not always practical. What you see as an impractical choice may be more practical. All dreams may not seem practical to you, and yet dreams do come true. Better to become an artist than frustrated in other work. Better to try a desired course of action than to ignore it. Let your own heart make the calls in your life. The proof is in more than the pudding. Whether you succeed in the eyes of the world is not as important as following your heart. When you have a deep desire, follow it. See where it takes you. Otherwise, how will you know?
If something turns out to be a wrong turn, why, then, you can go down a different road. What is lost? You have not lost your way. You are finding it. How can you be a baseball player unless you try your hand at baseball? To begin something is a great thing. To end it may be too, and so you try, and so you find out. You cannot usually take someone’s word for it. There is no way to know where your next step will lead. Steps have to be taken. They cannot only be thought about. They have to be taken.
Love your own life and the course it takes. Love making your own choices. And encourage others to make their own choices, for choices are theirs to make.
If someone is sewing a dress, let them choose the buttons.
If someone is painting their room, let them choose the color. And if then, they do not like the color when it is done, they can repaint it, or perhaps they will come to like it, or perhaps it doesn’t matter. What matters is the freedom -- the choice itself, not so much.
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