Handling advice

When it comes to advice on how to handle advice, there is only this one that seems to have been accepted by most of humanity. Even if they had never heard of this quote by Oscar Wilde.

"I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself."

Mostly, it works that way with advice. 'You should learn to take criticism' will come from the guy who goes into towering rages even if you point out a single typo in his letter. 'You should put behind the bad things and remember the good things about people' will come from the guy notorious for nursing grudges for decades. And so on.

But, then, the best way people have found for handling advice about human behavior is to start applying it on how others behave with them; never on how they behave with other people. Oh, yes, there are a few of the latter, the ones who people talk about in pitying terms as being 'too good for their own good'. Quite the sort of friends people actively seek, of course, but friends for whom they intend doing nothing - after all, they ARE sought after because they are considered 'low-maintenance'.

Otherwise, if you read advice about how a good friend is supposed to behave, you automatically think of which of your friends fit the bill. (If YOU think about whether YOU fit the bill...well, remember the 'too good for their own good' lot? THAT's where you can apply for membership.) If you read advice about how to be a good citizen, you check out whether your neighbors are good citizens by that definition. And so on and so on.

Essentially, the best way to handle advice is to apply it on other people. Especially if it is not the sort that you can just pass on to others. And rest content about a good job done.

To apply it to yourself - too much damn work!