Some Advice Are Like “Hot Tea”
Because not every piece of advice needs to be effected immediately
There are two kinds of advice; a useful one and a useless one. (Yes!, a piece of advice can be useless as well). Advice normally comes in two fashions as well and they are solicited and unsolicited.
A solicited advice is intentionally sought for due to reason or another, whereas an unsolicited one normally comes out of a situation you didn’t plan for, thereby, did not actively seek.
Many times in your life you’ve had to get advised by different people — at your home, workplace, party, church, you name it. When that happens, the normal reaction is to nod in acceptance, or smile sheepishly as though you get it. At that point, you aren’t really thinking about what the person who had just advised you really said, although you seemingly appreciate that they did.
If you seek for the advice, then chances are, you’re more inclined to listening and heeding to them— as opposed to if you didn’t. But when you fall into the category of people who don’t really effect the advice they received, don’t panic. Because it’s only human to do so.
The real issue here is beating ourselves up when we have to live through the consequences of not heeding to advice.
Don’t get me wrong, not all advice that is rendered useful. But not heeding to the useful ones can be tormenting at a later time — more often than not.
And that’s why it’s imperative that we learn something about that situation when it occurs — that not all advice needs to be worked on immediately.
The reasons being that;
1) You may not have actively sought the advice in the first place
This is when you receive unsolicited advice and can’t be bothered to let the words you hear bear fruits in you. Not until something happens and you start to draw the parallels between the advice you received and what’s currently happening.
It can occur in three main ways such as through having an epiphany, regret, and in the form of growth.
Epiphany, in simple terms, means the sudden realization of something important you’re meant to be doing. It can also be referred to as the “light bulb moment”. When you have an epiphany, it makes you recollect things you might have heard, seen, or experienced similarly to it. Recollecting words, in this case, could be a piece of advice — that you once received about something you couldn’t make sense of, maybe, that is only beginning to, now.
Regrets are the tortuous type. Having regrets means you wished you had acknowledged and effected a change based on the type of advice you received but didn’t. Rather, you ignored them and now living through the consequences. Regret makes you go back in time to the advice you refused to adhere to. It’s the worst kind of nudge to heed to an advice, but the most efficient way to trigger growth.
Growth is the advancement from a particular stage or place to another — always better. Growth comes from when you’ve adhered to advice that yielded fruits and manifested in many ways in your life. Growth also makes you look back to the time you received advice where you’re only currently starting to understand its importance and allowing it to bear fruits in you. It’s much more favorable than regret and similar to having an epiphany.
2) You actively sought for the advice.
This explains in a situation where you’ve actively asked for someone to advise. This way, your mind is open to receiving anything that they have to tell you — your spirit, and your body also.
Judging by both points, it’s dismissible to assume that just because you sought advice and received them, or you paid attention to an unsolicited one, therefore you’re liable to effect a change immediately as a result.
A piece of advice works in the form of a “hot tea”. Sometimes it hurts when you have to digest some harsh truths and blows that come with it, other times it’s sweet when it looks like it’s just exactly what you needed to hear. But the common denominator to both is that hot tea still needs and takes time in having it. As a matter of fact, you sip a hot tea never drinking. What this means is that you sip some and leave some. After some time you sip some more. This is the analogy of how advice works at times. Some of them you listen to and immediately adhere to, others you leave, not intentionally though, for a later time when they’re necessary — again, based on the two reasons as aforementioned.
So when you start to beat yourself up for not working on the advice you received immediately, don’t forget that there’s time for them to work, just like there’s time for everything. But make no mistakes in confusing it with intentionally disallowing yourself from doing what seems right from the advice you receive — or desisting from what seems wrong from it as well.
I mean, your destiny is in your own hands. You can choose to start now to effect the necessary changes that will propel you in life or you can postpone it for later, and maybe wait for life to teach you the bitter lessons with regrets.
There’s nothing wrong with not understanding certain advice at that point in time they were rendered. Most times, much advice sound like parables to us even though we think we understand them. What makes the difference is making an attempt to seek for advice when you think you need them and listening to them. It’s that thought that counts first.
So when you start feeling overwhelmed or guilty about not working on the “good” advice you might have received immediately, remember the “hot tea” analogy. And take it one step at a time, one sip at a time.
