Don't be a Fool. Ask for Advice.

in philosophy •  4 years ago  (edited)

My husband said something profound to me the other day.
He said, "The difference between adults and teenagers, is that teenagers don't ask for advice."

I pondered this, and have continued pondering this for several days.

The first thing I did was hold up a mirror to myself. I didn't do this for very long. I'm one of the most advice-seeking people I know.
The second thing I did was consider the teenagers I knew and agreed he was correct on that front. I then considered people I thought of as immature, and confirmed that they, too, fell into the category of 'teenager' even if their age disagreed.
And thirdly, I thought about those I considered mature and successful, and realised that, for the most part, he was very very right.

Now, this begs several questions:
Is not asking for advice something we're supposed to grow out of, or is it something some regress to?
Is it a question of humility vs pride?
Can we hinder our maturity by surrounding ourselves with people who are not equipped to give advice?
Or are we simply too lazy to grow up?

A lot of people are of the opinion that "adulting" is somewhat of a hoax; that we all just stumble through life 'faking it' and pretending to be adults. That a majority of us don't see ourselves as mature adults.
Is this part of the problem?

To some extent, 'faking it' is completely fine. But don't 'fake it' in ignorance!
Why teach yourself everything from scratch when you can learn from others? Fake it in an emergency, sure. But don't fake something you can be proficient in.

Find subject role models. Learn from them. Ask them questions.

"You are not everything you could be, and you know it."
~ Jordan B. Peterson

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Definitely worth asking all the questions all the time.
Yes, for sure ask the right people, and it might take a while to figure out who the right people are to ask. But I think the first step is to realize that you don't know what you don't know.
Growing up we go through the high school phase of " I know everything" to the adult phase of "ooh.. I don't know that much" and later " I don't know anything!" as we progress through life and hit more and more confusing twists and turns.

Yes, you're completely right (and lovely to see you're still lurking on Steemit!)
But for some reason, a lot of people don't progress through those stages, and I'm unsure why...

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