Young and invincible (or why we don't listen to advice)
So why don't people listen to advice?
Let me ask you, was there a time in your life when you believed that advice was for sods who couldn't think for themselves?
We've all had our moments when we're convinced we have all the answers. Mine started when I believed I was Superman. I must've been 5 or 6 years old. I leapt off a swing and fell flat on my chest. Caused a mild panic at the playground.
My mom and teachers had always warned me not to play Superman that way but would I listen? Nooo... of course not. I was convinced I could fly and nothing in the world would've stopped me from taking that lesson in gravity. It just had to happen.
As a kid I've always wanted to be a champ and being a champ was all about finding your own way, proving you are right and others wrong. Its an identity thing. Identity's like the clothes you wear. Once your parents or teachers starts dressing you, you are not you so you train yourself to reject all these opinions that people were imposing on you. You'd say they were cramping your style.
I've wised up a little since but I don't think anyone had ever really gotten over their identity crisis - the idea of "me" that's causing us to stubbornly cling to our beliefs and opinions in spite of good advice from others. We need our convictions because they give a solid body to "me"-ness. We need it to feel alive.
And what of those who would risk everything including their lives to prove a point?
Thankfully I've never reached that point before. I suppose if my sticking up for something is purely for a sense of satisfaction or self-fulfillment, like insisting that my car can kick your car's ass, lets race, then I probably wouldn't bother. Not that I don't have pride or think there's nothing worth defending but I've learnt one thing. Proving myself right is not always what it promises to be. I mean, how many decisions have you made that seemed so right at one time now seems so wrong?
So my take on why people don't listen to advice is simple - fear. The fear that accepting advice diminishes our individuality, the precious thing that makes us unique. The less mature we are, the more identity matters and the stronger you can expect the resistance to programming via second-hand "advice".
7 comments:
Omg... I was just thinking about this a few days ago!
*De Javu!!!*
I was reflecting on how many times my decisions or perceptions on things in the past seemed so right once but the other way round today... And I was just wondering... Sometimes, it is so hard to know if you're on the right side or the wrong side. Cos those realizations will usually only occur months or even years later....
I once made a foolish decision, which was obviously objected by my folks. Like everyone else in the "rebellious" period, I insisted with my decision. If you ask me today, I would say that was indeed a foolish decision. But one thing to note. There was never moments of regret.
Because I think experiencing my wrong decisions make me learn better. This is something my dad never agrees. He always tell me sometimes, it is too late when you get to learn your mistakes. There is no turning back in some cases. If you know what I mean. His advice would be prevent before it happens. Something...I do not entirely agree with....
Erm... and not taking advice is not always due to fear. I think sometimes, people just have their own stand in life. Like different people has different ways of doing things or different views...
I think whatever decisions we make, doesn't matter if we take advices or not, the most important thing is to have a conscious to face the consequences.
You're going thru what all of us youngsters go thru. Some call it character building. And you're right, the price is consequence. What people don't always understand is how deep the consequences go. Imagine what it must feel like to see a loved one about to get thrown under the bus because he or she is overconfident, in denial or just plain ignorant of the consequence. Will we intervene or let consequence do the teaching? Maybe we'll never know until we become parents ourselves.
Yeah. That's what I thought too. You know.... we'll never really know how it feels until we're in the similar situation.....
I feel so so so so stressed at the moment btw... I need something to calm me down....
Take a deep breath. Hopefully you're de-stressed now. :D
you know on the contrary, kids want to wear certain clothes that have style, young grils now want to wear skimpy, cute, pretty clothes. When i was young, like 3, there would be ALOT of arguments with my parents over what to wear. They'll have to cajole threaten, trick me into wearing whatever they wanted me to. It's not that the clothes they gave me o wear were not cute/ pretty/ etc etc. They were. My sister was clammering to wear them. I just wanted pants and shirt and sneakers, but it was inappropriate at that time for a girl to be seen wearing so much of those. But they were more uncomfortable than t shirts and shorts and at that age i decided that comfort was above everything else. Looking back now, yes, i see that they were really cute clothes. But i HATED them. Hated the shoes, hated... to be tricked into it... Now it's amusing to see that what my mother actually did was to put in the the cutest garb and i wanted to wear "normal" clothes. I didnt understand the concept of looking nice at that point of time, but just to feel comfortable. I still do now and it is definately the basis for my outfits,that's why nobody talks to me when im alone. LOL! it's not because they were cramping my style, but i just wanted to be comfortable.
Rebelious. I didnt see the need to be one really. Maybe it's because i just didnt have much of a choice. and frankly speaking, if it wasnt my friends who helped, me i guess i wouldve been a gonna. Friends like DOM XD and others in church that helped. i am very grateful for them because if they werent there, i dont know what i'd become.
on the whole, i guess i've always been a mild person, but in my case i have learnt to sieve out advice that are relevant and sometimes, people say things without really knowing what's going on and they label it as advice. now, that's the real problem. because see, those are good intentions and i appreciate them, but the advice, no not really applies. So is that counted as not listening to advice ? LOL! So basically, we should all know ourselves and go our own way, with help from others gaining as much perspective as possible.
Hi Xen, I think peer pressure has a lot to do with how we dress, even for the self-declared nonconformist. We dress so as not to be rejected by the people we want to identify with. People dress like geeks because they want to hang with geeks. People wear emo clothes because they want to hang with emo kids.
When our parents start dressing us, they definitely don't have geek or emo in mind. They don't understand cool. We want cool.
I think the same mojo is behind our attitude against adopting the ideas & advice of people we don't see as cool. Ironically we have no problem adopting it from the people we like. So we don't really mind being 'dressed' by other people after all. What matters is who is the person we're accepting it from.
In the end I think its all about making our own choices rather than having them made for us. Even if we copy from our peers, there is an element of choice. We make the choice to copy, rather than have it forced on us. That desire to exercise choice may be what people see as rebelliousness.
That's right. :D Cheers
Post a Comment