Advice I'm Glad I Never Took

Whether it's giving or receiving, it comes from a good place.  

1.     Traveling Can Wait After high school a lot of my friends went straight to college and some of them moved to new cities to start a new life. I on the other hand took a year off to save for a car. Once I bought my first car and enrolled in school, I realized how badly I wanted to travel. Since I had already taken a year off, I felt so behind in school that the thought of taking more time off didn’t seem like an option. Whenever I sought out for advice many people told me to stick with school because traveling can wait. Although this idea is true, school can also wait. The adventures and experiences that I felt were so important to me needed to be done immediately and I couldn’t bear the thought of not going for it. So, I did the exact opposite and traveled as much as I could. Just remember, you’ll never regret the chances you take as oppose to the ones you didn’t.

2.     Just Smoke a Blunt & Relax Something I used to struggle with was how to control my extreme emotions. I never had public tantrums or had childish behavior when things didn’t go my way, but I did have nervous breakdowns and get easily stressed out. When I would talk to people  about going to therapy they would always say, “Nicole you don’t need therapy, you need a blunt.” Most of the times when these comments were made, I used to laugh it off, because I knew why they meant it. They too stressed about school, family issues, relationships, and their way of coping and relaxing after being extremely stressed out was to smoke. I've never been against people who done it, but I knew smoking wasn't going to solve my issues. I'm pretty sure if I did try it and consider using that as a coping mechanism it would have worked by the time I was a pothead. I knew my issues were beneath the surface and the only way to solve them was by facing them, not masking them through a cloud of marijuana smoke. So I wrote down the things that I knew I needed to work on and found the help I needed. 

3.     "Be Positive" or "Cheer Up" I honestly used to hate when the word of advice I would get people was to just "cheer up" or "just be positive." Insert the eye roll and the quick fantasy of straggling the sh*t out of someone. This piece of advice is quite impossible to take, because us humans don't really have an on and off switch. We can't (or at least I can speak for myself and say I can't) switch emotions. Don’t let anyone rush your process of what you feel or what you’re going through. If you have to feel sad then feel sad. You are entitled to be upset and it is quite unfair for anyone to force you to feel an emotion you are not experiencing naturally. Sometimes when people want you to just "cheer up" or "get over it" isn't necessarily considering your feelings. Now if you find yourself being negative all the time, then that is an entirely different thing. However, if you're going through something and feel this overwhelming sense of sorrow or sadness, then allow yourself to go through that process without anyone rushing you through it.  

4.     Keep Your Enemies Closer… I used to think this saying was a way of staying in control of any bad thing coming near me. As long as I can see danger and it was near me, for what i believed at the time, figured it was way to protect myself. This mind game is also called waste of time. I have learned that this piece of advice is not only a toxic way of thinking, but also allowing toxic people to stay around you. Your peace of mind and well being is so important as you get older that the honest and smartest thing for anyone to do is to run the opposite way. Keep your enemies or people who don't care for your happiness, far away from you. 

There are advice I'm glad I never took and advice I regret taking. I'm always open minded to the opinions and suggestions that my friends and family have for me, but the one thing I have always trusted were my instincts. If something doesn't sound right, it's obviously because it isn't right for you. I hope you enjoyed my article and consider these pieces of advice I've dodged.