330. be curious
Be curious, not consumed. There is no competitive edge to consuming the same stuff as everyone else. While the endless bombardment of media messages have no real power over what we think, they definitely do influence what we think about. And in this world of commotion, where competition for attention is everywhere, it is silence that offers us what we’ve been after all along — a way to make sense of the world. So, turn off. Go silent. Focus. Let your curiosities dictate your moves, instead of what is being sold as the popular idea. Search through different and competing sources. Explore new ideas and methodologies. Connect the dots that make that most sense and develop a new way to look at the world because if you don’t do it for yourself someone will do it for you.
329. seeking advice
We all want to make the right decision for ourselves, so we seek advice by asking “what should I do, option A or B?” The weight of the advice we receive will be influenced by the experience of the person we’re asking, however the problem is that what worked for one person may not work for you. There are many factors that go into the success or failure of a particular option, therefore we can’t take one person’s advice too seriously. Ideally, asking for advice should, as the author Derek Sivers explains in Hell Yeah or No, “be like echolocation — bouncing ideas off of all your surroundings, and listening to all the echoes to get the whole picture.”
No matter how much advice you get, you’re always likely to receive what worked best for other people. Ultimately, only you will know what works best for you in the end. The right decision for you may contrast with popular opinion, and that’s okay, because all of our individuals situations have personal nuances that no one else knows about. We all need to find our own way, sometimes that means making the unpopular decision, which may help us understand why it was unpopular to begin with, while other times, it becomes the right and best decision we could have ever made. So seek advice from everywhere, but do so with the idea that each piece of advice is simply part of a larger puzzle you’re putting together.