Unsolicited Wisdom

Sometimes it seems the universe sends us messages. Perhaps more likely, we’re looking for help and our subconscious mind shows us the way.

I’ve come to believe that we often don’t communicate well enough with ourselves. We usually have the answers to many of our problems. We just don’t hear it well. So when we see something that seems to be the answer to our problems, it’s indeed our mind pointing us in the right direction—we are actively seeking the answer in our environment.

There are times when I can’t decide between two alternatives, and I try to let a coin toss make the decision for me. If we are truly indifferent to the choices, a coin toss wouldn’t matter. But if we favour one outcome over the other, the coin toss will reveal the one we actually want. I’ve often ended up ignoring the coin toss because I immediately felt disappointed with the way the coin landed!

The TV series Big Bang Theory turns this idea into a gag in an episode where Sheldon decides to leave all trivial life decisions to a roll of the dice. During lunch, his dice tells him to eat corn succotash. When his friend asks him what he’s thinking about, he promptly answers hamburger!

Over the past few months, I’ve stumbled upon a few unsolicited pieces of advice—things that I didn’t know I needed to hear. Here are two that stuck with me:

The most powerful word you can say to yourself is “yet.”

I saw this advice in The Medium’s Newsletter’s issue #172.

At the beginning of the year, I set myself a few unwritten goals—unwritten because I’m superstitious. I didn’t achieve them, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t try or make any progress on them. Adding the word “yet” to those goals reminds me that just because the year is coming to an end doesn’t mean I’m not closer to them.

Replace “What if” questions with “Even if” Statements

This advice on how to talk to ourselves was in issue #184.

It helps to change the narrative. As much as online content pushes us to think the world is ending or that we’re not moving along as fast as every other person is, our lives aren’t the same as others. We cannot be held ransom to timelines and expectations, even if we set them ourselves. Most of us are bad estimators. Life is unpredictable. And humans are highly adaptable. There’s always another way out.

There’s a common theme behind these bits of unsolicited wisdom. I’ve been very hard on myself. Perhaps you have too? Being constantly surrounded by data, news and updates about what others are doing can make one feel inadequate. These messages seem to be telling me to forgive myself.

• I may not have that tangible thing to share, yet. I may not be able to share them by 31st December, and that’s okay.
• What if I don’t complete that project I started? Even if I don’t complete that project, I can take a few more days to finish it. Or if it isn’t working, I can hand it over to someone more capable of completing it.

What pieces of unsolicited useful advice have you stumbled upon?