Sometimes I Want To Give Advice

I am a pretty happy person. I'm naturally pretty anxious and I am definitely guilty of over thinking things and getting into spirals of negativity, but overall, I take pleasure in my life and have made a series of choices that have worked out for me such that at 20-mumble-something I am where I want to be in life. I'm not an expert in a lot of things, but there are some things that I am actually pretty darn close to being an expert on (hooray for graduate degrees!) and I have a lot of opinion.

I've had a series of conversations recently with friends/acquaintances/coworkers who I think are Doing It Wrong and I find myself wanting to give advice and knowing that it wont actually help. Knowing that all I can do is model what I think they should do and otherwise keep my big mouth shut (because let's face it, no one wants to know what you think they should do unless they ask you specifically for your opinion). Even though I know that they don't care, I am going to give all of my advice here in an open letter to the world because this is my blog and I can. If you think that this advice is aimed at you, maybe it is... but, it's possible that it isn't, I have had very similar conversations with a lot of people recently.



1. Getting things that you want takes time and effort. You will never find a job if you do not apply for jobs. If you have been applying and not getting any calls, don't give up. Maybe retool your resume and cover letter strategy? Maybe look at the jobs you are applying for? And, I don't care how awesome you are, the economy sucks; if you want to eat, maybe you will need to take a shitty job so that you can have a pay check while you look for something better.

1A. This applies to basically everything in life - if it's going to be good, it's going to be work to get it. If you just putz around playing on facebook all day, you will not get what you want.

2. If your partner has shown that s/he cannot be sexually monogamous and you do not want to be sexually monogamous either, talk about whether or not monogamy is actually important and reevaluate your relationship rules. You don't get to just decide that maybe you are not monogamous without talking about it first. Talking about it should happen regularly when you are not fighting, regardless of the choices you make.

3. If you have health insurance and money is not an issue, GO TO THE DOCTOR when you require medical advice/treatment/care.

3A. If you require a specialist, go to that specialist. If you do not like your doctor, find a new one. These people have a decade of training for a reason and they are business people who are providing you a service. Act accordingly.

3B. If you ignore a medical issue, it does not go away, it only gets worse.

4. Your children should not be your only social outlet, they are great and I totally get it (they're there and they're awesome) but really you need some adult social interaction and it's not healthy for your kids to be your emotional support system.

5. Just because you are not being actively abused does not mean that you need to stay married. I honestly do not understand how you put up with that when you are clearly so unhappy it's palpable and... the transgressions are that great and that constant. Pretending that shit didn't happen is eating away at your soul. Everyone will still like you, both of you, if you break up. (We'll still like you if you stay married, but you are so unhappy that something needs to change).

6. If you ask me for advice, and I give it to you, and you do not choose to follow it, that's cool. But, when everything is in shambles because you didn't believe me, you only get so much of my sympathy, because, I told you so. Maybe next time you should either think about what I had to say/try what I suggested or just not bother asking for my opinion in the first place.

7. Relationships take a lot of work and a lot of compromise. You will only ever meet so many people in your life and you may never find someone who is "perfect" for you - that's all luck. Plan your life accordingly.

7A. Getting married is not magic. It's cool and great and I think everyone should be able to do it if they want to, but it doesn't fundamentally change your relationship only your taxes. If you want to get married, talk to your partner about it and decide on what will make it meaningful for you, then do it and continue on with your life. If you cannot do that, then you probably should not marry that person.

7B. It's a lot easier to have babies with a co-parent, but if you've got certain parts or a lot of money, it's not necessary. Make your priorities and then decide what's best for you.

8. On that same vein, if something is not working for you in your relationship talk to your partner about it. So what if you told him/her that you were happy to do X (where X is anything from bathing the baby to sleeping with other people), you're not happy now and that's what matters. You are allowed to say "I know I thought I could do this thing, but now I'm finding that it's not working for me like I thought it would, can we talk it out and see where we can find a compromise that keeps us both happy?" You are allowed to demand that your partner do their fair share of the childcare - it's their kid too. (I am so surprised how common this complaint is... it seems like half the world goes around having babies with no expectation of caring for them and the other half thinks that they can only complain to friends/at work about it and NOT to their co-parent... WTF?)

9. If you what you want to happen is complicated and takes a bunch of steps, some of which other people need to do, it is your responsibility to ensure that it gets done. If you ask someone to do something that is not important to them, it is your responsibility to give them a "due date" and remind them about it, it is also your responsibility to provide them with the information that they need in order to complete that task. This is the same for work as for play - your priorities are not other people's priorities and it will only end in tears if you don't figure that out.

10. If you want something, ask for it. The worst thing that can happen is that you don't get it, and you don't have it now... so.... Now, I get it that how and when you ask matters, and totally agree in planning when the best time to ask and how to phrase, etc etc. But you should be making a plan.

11. Good times will never stay. Something bad will always happen. All you can do is enjoy the good while you have it and do everything you can think of to avert the bad stuff. That means maintain your health while you have, save your money while you have it, work on/talk about your relationship problems while you're happy with each other and not only when you have a fight, maintain your friendships when you don't need emotional support, back up files, get your oil changed, pick up new projects at work (to keep your skills current and make yourself indispensable)... everything. It's the hard work when things are good that makes the bad times few, far between, and not so rough. You cannot control getting laid off if the company is going under, you cannot control a natural disaster, you cannot control cancer, bad stuff will happen - your job is to do what you can so that when it does happen, you are ready for it.

Ahhhhh. It feels good to get all of that out of my system.