Hey my Sweet Lifers! What a fun start to a new year I have had. I have realized many things about myself over these years but one thing I had not counted on was being attributed to being useful. “Useful” used loosely and mainly referencing to being the one that gets called to “fix” or give valued opinions and advice concerning important matter of life. The former and the latter tends to blur. For when a friend asks for advice…well, they might as well be asking for my opinion!
Advice and “fixing” things between humans has been, quite frankly, now that it has been brought to my attention, a skill set that I have acquired over many years and probably has something to do with being the eldest of five. There’s a bunch of compromising and devising creative ways for folks to think they have won their way, when upon closer inspection often times they actually have not. But alas, who’s paying that much attention to a resolution when it appears that the one arguing or in need has been duly remedied; at least in their eyes and for the moment? Case in point. Arguing is for sissies. It is best to turn to a solution where everyone feels they have won.
Or is it really? For I find that the best advice is often a hard pill to swallow and many a friend has indeed sought my advice/opinion precisely because they wanted to hear the truth and not what they knew someone else would say to make them feel better. This is only, I might add available to the closest of friends. Otherwise you will run the risk of being ostracized as being callous and with much lack of empathy.
Take the girlfriend that has been having trouble with her child. You tread lightly so as not to seem uncaring, knowing full well that if something is not done fairly fast there will be a larger issue down the road. Or, a fellow classmate that is always asking for your notes because somehow you got signed up, unbeknownst to you to be their secretary. Or, let’s go there…your own spouse who has reverted to complaining about everything like an ungrateful child. It is exhausting!
So when I was hanging out with a handful of friends and we got to discussing the things we liked about one another I was surprised that every single one of mine proudly exclaimed “I love you because you are always honest.” No B.S. here… and rightly so. I just don’t have time for it. Which reminds me of my Nana who always said when asked about whatever was happening. “O.K. Are you ready to hear this? Cause I ain’t wasting time telling you what to do if you are not ready to hear it!” She was tough as nails, that one. And apparently, I have not fallen far from her tree either. But I will say that when asked to “fix” something not only do I feel like my grandmother, but I’ll add one more caveat to it. Which is to say, if you want to know and I tell you, I most definitely expect you to follow my “usefulness!”
Ya’ll Stay “Sweet!”
~A
