What is the most unhelpful advice you have received?
I’ll go first: “You have to have children when you’re young,” told to me when I was in my late 20s, with no desire to ever have kids, and no means to support them, by someone divorced multiple times with at least one adult child who does not speak to them.
Also: Responding to “How do I deal with this problem?” questions with “Oh, don’t worry about it, it’s enough that you’re even thinking about it!”
Find a trade. If you’re good at what you do, it really doesn’t matter how wierd or fucked up you are. You can even get in full-on arguments with your boss that get forgotten about once everyone calms down.
Lost out on a good job opportunity with this one. I was going to do some interview prep and someone just told me to, “be yourself, they just want to get to know you.” Yeah bullshit… didn’t get that gig and did interview prep for a different opportunity. It went incredibly well the second time around.
As long-term career advice, I think this is helpful In finding something that doesn’t drag you down. If you can’t be yourself at work it’s going to be far more taxing.
But I absolutely understand this is a luxury to be able to be in that position of being choosy about your employer.
You’ll be far happier in an environment that enjoys you for being you, but you’ll find a job quicker by saying what they want to hear
Get an advanced education, work harder, never be the one to say, “That is not my job” was the worst advice I could ever receive. I got into debt and was abused and exploited by my employers.
The problem is that when the people giving that advice were working, it was great advice. Companies took care of their employees. Tenure mattered. Companies today are mindless corporate blobs that only care about spreadsheet numbers and the next quarter’s results.
Maybe in some situations in the past owners were better to their workers, but in many cases there is an unbroken line of exploitation going back in the past. The idea that exploitation is an extremely new phenomenon benefits the owning class by concealing the long and bloody history of proletarian struggles.
Some of that advice is true … work hard, work at something all the time and do your best … but always for yourself and your well being and for your own self and your family.
I’m Indigenous Canadian and this is what all my family did including me. I worked for myself all my life … building, construction, renos, fixing stuff, building stuff all the time … I did some work for companies and businesses but always with the idea that I wouldn’t work more than I had to and only to gain a bit more money to move on as soon as possible.
Twenty five years later … I own three properties, multiple old vehicles that I maintain myself and I own everything I have without debt … I’m not the wealthiest but I am debt free and have a healthy savings and I still work for myself gaining a bit more every time .
Your experience is the exception rather than the rule. It’s been shown that rags to riches is a myth perpetrated by capitalism. At one time I had your level of success. It was all taken from me when I became disabled. As a Canadian, you have the distinct advantage of at least some social welfare assistance whereas your neighbor to the south has virtually none.
I agree that the whole rags to riches idea is a complete sham that doesn’t exist … unless you are already born wealthy … and then that doesn’t make any sense because you never had rags to begin with.
My story is more rags or bare clothing … I’m not wealthy … I just have enough to be comfortable … I’m not in debt and I drive old beater cars and trucks and never owned a new vehicle in my life … I bought small properties away from big city centers where land is cheap but living is hard
And yes … I know most people are probably not capable of doing what I did … I grew up with lots of people in my situation and I was fortunate enough to figure a way out, mostly through the luck of finding the right partner who worked just as hard as me, parents who were great guides and teachers and a small network of family and friends I could count on.
I have a less impressive, but similar story to yours. I’d say it’s fine to work hard and do work that’s not your job, but the key is to follow through by demanding the proper acknowledgement and gratification for it. Like, doing it for free a couple of times to be nice is fine, but after that, the value you bring with this has to be properly acknowledged and compensated.
If you’ve been working hard and helping out, and an employer doesn’t gratify you to that value, the proper response is not to give up and pin it on hard work being the problem. That employer is being the problem. Try to change that if you can at all.
Back as a young fella, striking out in the dating market a bunch ...
"Just be yourself!"
No, honestly, that was the problem last time - I was looking for something a little more granular and actionable.
This is one of those helpful and encouraging things that people say without necessarily really thinking it through. Deep down in intent, they're right - you can't fake your way to healthy relationships, being insincere or putting on a performance of being someone you're not isn't going anywhere genuine down the road. Absolutely correct, absolutely great advice - but it's never given in sufficient complexity and depth to be useful.
None of those grown-ups were like "Ah yes, definitely be sincere about who you are - but also don't spend a whole date monologuing about the book you just read or your favourite video game."
That you can be genuine and sincere about who you are, while still using your social skills and putting your best foot forward socially just ... didn't occur. At the time, my understanding was that it was a hard binary - either I was 100% me at 100% volume and whatever came out of my mouth was definitely the best thing I could say, or I was stifling myself and being 'fake' in order to build an equally-fake relationship.
It took a friend's brother taking me aside to make it 'click' - he was holding a can or a bottle and was like "So the whole object is all 'real you' yeah? But any time you're talking to someone is like right now - you can only see the side that's facing you. It's all you, it's all honest, but you still want to show them the best side, the best angle, of the whole thing. Don't sprint straight to showing them all of your worst angle just because that's what's on your mind that day."
Yeah, the simplistic “Just be yourself” advice doesn’t take into account the “If you don’t love me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best” type of attitude.
It also bypasses the fact that “yourself” is such a fuzzy concept anyway. So because I’m bad at public speaking, that shouldn’t mean I should “be myself” and avoid it. I should merely be aware of my current limitations. That was an accurate way to describe myself in the past, but instead of accepting it, I worked on it, forced myself into a job that requires it, and now I’m pretty good at it.
I think almost everyone can look back 10 years ago and think of some way they ended up changing. So with that being the case, who knows who we’ll be 10 years into the future? No need to anchor too hard on who we think we are right now, it’s valuable to also give consideration to the kind of person we want to be in the future and take action towards becoming that person.
You make a good point about common advice often being too simplistic and generalized to be useful. And yeah, dating is rough. Glad you got better advice in the end.
The problem is that “yourself” still comes out eventually. And sometimes it takes a long while to find “the one” because you kind of hid certain aspects from your partners for too long. This is generally why most of my longer-term relationships have failed. Too many “best faces forward” for too long, until one breaks that
I was mid 30s when I found the one that is “the one”. We had our first date in our work clothes, and had a conversation that would sound insane to any observers. For the last 5 years, I’ve never felt the need to hold anything back or change the way I talk about things, and I dont think she does either. Because we still have insane conversations
2 days ago we had a moving up ceremony, and the speaker said that the secret to a successful life is “Honor your parents and Honor God”. That advice wouldn’t apply to everyone…
“You just have to work through the pain.” I’ve injured myself multiple times in the past exercising by following this idiotic advice.
It’s one thing to push through discomfort, that’s how your body gets stronger. But If you’re in actual pain, stop and listen to the alarm bells your body is giving you.
Gee. Thanks “doctor” for your advice. Obviously I’m going to listen to you after you watched a three minute YouTube video and not the doctor with six years of medical training and education!
Sold it 5 years ago for somewhere in the 700s. So ultimately it turned out okay. But there was an extremely awkward period where I had to move out and would have sold if it wasn’t underwater. I wound up becoming a landlord for several years which I wouldn’t have chosen and felt pretty scummy but it did save me in the long run.
That since I was pregnant it was time to let my career go.
My career is critical to my family’s ability to live a middle class life (and it’s critical to my sanity and happiness, but the person who gave me this “advice“ wasn’t really one for acknowledging or valuing mental health).
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