Dear Seema

It's always easier to give advice than to take and follow advice. Lately, I've been dispensing advice with all the heart of an ice-cube and just as chillingly rational too. For all I know, I could be spewing words and directing people the wrong way. Or I could be right, and be responsible for putting people onto the right path. Advice giving requires acknowledging the other person might have issues you don't know about, might have reasons for not acting on your advice (ie 'been there, done that'), or simply may not be able to act for reasons you don't know about.

It's easy to say what someone should do or not do when you're on the outside looking in. But when you're the takee, it's a lot harder because sometimes advice means change, and no matter how resiliant and adaptive you can be, change is never easy -- especially when it means acknowledging your own behaviors and character might be self-sabotaging. The other thing is, making these changes takes a long time. It's not something a person just wakes up one day and says, "I will now be like THIS" -- it's a series of small steps, and each one is just as difficult as the preceeding one. Acknowleding that, I think, is a major step in the right direction.

And since I'm doling out the tough love as of late, anyone want some? (g)