A Piece of Advice

I'm always amazed when I hike down into the Grand Canyon and see the ways that people decide to hike.  I see all sorts of clothing and shoes, from flip-flops to dress pants to high heels to dresses that definitely weren't made for hiking.  Many of these people already are a mile or two down the trail and haven't yet turned around to make the grueling trip up to the top, so they still haven't learned about the mistakes that they're making.

I'm also amazed at the incredibly small amounts of water that people bring with them.  I've seen entire families of five or six people with just one small water bottle between them.  Many people go down a mile or two without any water at all--after all, they can buy water when they get back up to the Village.

All of these people are ignoring well-publicized advice from people who have a lot of experience in dealing with the results of people hiking into the Canyon poorly prepared.  There are signs and posters all over the place telling people to bring plenty of water and to dress appropriately, but while many people take the warnings seriously, many others ignore them completely.  I recently saw a couple with two kids stop at a sign on one of the trails that warns about not taking water.  "They could use our pictures for that sign," the woman said to her husband.  "Right down to the not having any water."  She seemed to think it was pretty funny, but their two kids looked pretty thirsty and weren't laughing.

Quite a few people get extremely sick each year, and several die for one simple reason--they've chosen to ignore advice from people who truly know what they're talking about and who truly care about everyone's well-being.

Why is it so easy for us to ignore advice?  I know that in my life, I've gotten a lot of advice from people who really weren't qualified to give advice.  Most of them give it because they think that their ways of doing things somehow are the best, and that others would be well off to do things the same way.  Most of it is well intentioned, but when people don't take into consideration that each of us must find our own ways in life then their advice simply falls flat.  I've received relationship advice from people who have terrible personal relationships, money advice from people on welfare, professional advice from people who aren't very well regarded in their professions, and marriage advice from people who never have been married.  As the amount of advice grows, it becomes easier and easier to take it with that grain of salt and ignore it, choosing instead to follow my own ideas about how something should be done or searching out more credible sources of advice.

But doctors who have dealt extensively with emphysema or lung cancer patients advise us not to smoke--and still many people choose to smoke.  People who have dealt with the horrible effects of alcoholism advise us not to drink to excess, yet many people still choose to turn to drink as a way to "escape" their problems or situations.  Law officers who have dealt with the mangled bodies in car wrecks advise us not to exceed the speed limit and not to tailgate and not to drink and drive, yet many people do all those things every day, ignoring the advice they've been given by people who know what they're talking about and who care about it.

Some people regularly ignore advice because they feel that by taking it, they're giving other people some sort of control over their lives.  This is untrue, though--no one has power over our lives or over who we are.  We may allow people to have influence over us, but that doesn't give them any power over who we are as human beings.

Personally, I know that I don't have enough time on this planet to study and to learn everything there is to know.  Therefore, I want to take advice from people who know much more than I in areas outside of my expertise.  I try to take the advice of doctors concerning food and nutrition and exercise, and I try to take the advice of financial experts when I need to figure out what to do with my money.  I try to take the relationship advice of and follow the models of people who have happy, successful relationships.  And I try to make sure that any professional advice that I follow comes from someone who is successful and well respected in the field.

We get advice all the time, even from people we don't know--marketers and advertisers, for example, who advice us to buy things or to use certain services--and every time we get advice we face a decision whether or not to follow it.  Many people are losing their houses now because they took the advice of lenders to take out variable interest rate loans--even though the lenders giving the advice had much to gain when their customers followed it and took out such a loan.

We can become effective at taking advice by asking ourselves some simple questions when we get it.  Who's giving it?  If this person isn't an authority on the subject, has no real interest in me as a human being, or will gain personally if I take the advice, then I want to think twice or thrice before taking it.  Does it concern something that concerns me?  Someone may be advising me to buy stock in a certain company, but since I'm not actively involved in the stock market and I've done no research on it, then this advice is irrelevant to me.  What can happen if I don't follow it?  If I don't take water into the Canyon, there could be some very serious health-related consequences.  If I don't buy a new stereo for my car, the consequences most certainly will be limited.

Taking advice--or not taking it--is simply a matter of choice.  But let us choose intelligently, with full consciousness of what we're doing and where it may lead us.  Only then can we say that we're doing the most with the lessons that so many other people have learned in their lives. 

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