Life Advice That Sounds Good But Will Destroy You
The world is full of absolutely terrible advice.
Here is a breakdown of some of the most common but damaging
advice people receive, and why it is not actually helping you.
“Don’t Compare Yourself to Others”
Humans are a social species,
and comparing ourselves to others is part of our innate wiring.
The issue is not the fact that you do it;
the issue is that you might compare yourself
to sh*tty people or for sh*tty reasons.
- A role model is someone you compare yourself to.
- A mentor is someone whose expectations you try to live up to.
These are ways we grow and learn in the world.
One of the most effective ways to become a better person
is to compare yourself to great people.
Additionally, you should also compare yourself to your past self to see
if you have grown, developed, or let go of bad beliefs.
“Set Massive Ambitious Goals”
Research on goal setting shows that your motivation
is going to be proportional to how attainable
you perceive a goal to be.
While there is psychological value in having a big dream,
you tangibly need to break it down into a bunch
of more realistic goals with a clear plan of action.
The problem with setting massive goals is that people get motivated
for a week, see how little progress they make, and then give up.
We inherently need to see our progress bar move up;
if a goal is too far away, it becomes demotivating.
“Enforcing Positivity”
Life sucks sometimes,
and it is okay to feel bad things when it does.
Enforcing positivity on yourself is a subtle form of shame.
It unconsciously reinforces the idea that your worst moments
or negative emotions are unacceptable.
So much of mental health involves getting really good
at dealing with bad feelings:
- Learning how to be angry.
- Learning how to be sad.
- Learning how to grieve.
People who experience a wide range
of emotions—demonstrating emotional flexibility—are the happiest
and healthiest, not the people who force themselves
to feel good all the time.
“Manifestation”
Manifestation describes a cluster of psychological tendencies
or biases within our brains, such as confirmation bias.
When you focus heavily on a goal,
it primes your mind to start noticing evidence
or opportunities in your environment that were always there.
This part is scientifically valid.
Where manifestation advice gets ridiculous is the cosmological
explanation—the idea that the universe is delivering opportunities
to you because of your special manifestation powers.
Research shows that visualizing goals only works
when paired with a tangible plan of action.
If you just sit on your couch fantasizing,
you are no more likely to achieve your goals.
“Money Can’t Buy Happiness”
A more accurate way to phrase this is that money cannot
buy happiness, but it can buy away unhappiness.
Money is like oxygen: if you don’t have any,
it solves all of your problems,
but if you have plenty, it doesn’t solve any.
The less money you have, the more happiness it gives you.
However, once you reach a middle-class income,
the curve levels out aggressively,
and making more money will not move the needle much.
“Never Give Up”
In the 21st century, we have access to so many opportunities
and career paths that refusing to give up on one means
you are actually giving up opportunities elsewhere.
Giving up is a skill you need to learn.
- Persistence isn’t just about keeping going at all costs; you should feel like there is some development.
- If you put in more work but hit a ceiling of potential with diminishing returns, it is a clear sign to give up.
- If the bottleneck is your time, keep going. If the bottleneck is your talent, think about giving up.
“Follow Your Passion”
This well-intentioned advice is problematic for a few reasons.
- You can be passionate about many things without needing to make money from them.
- Trying to make money from what you are passionate about can kill your love for it; doing something as a hobby versus professionally are completely different experiences.
- Passion is not the cause of becoming excellent at something; it is the effect.
When you learn a skill, get good at it, and are rewarded,
it builds self-esteem.
This creates a virtuous cycle that ultimately makes you
passionate about the work.
The proper advice is to follow your potential, not your passion.
“Love Fixes Everything”
Love does not fix a bad relationship, it does not introduce trust
where there is none, and it does not make somebody a good partner.
Love does not make a relationship good;
it amplifies what the relationship already is.
- If you are in a toxic relationship, love makes it ten times more painful.
- If you are in a healthy relationship with mutual respect, love makes it ten times more satisfying.
Our culture overestimates love as a reason to stay together at all costs.
You can fall in love with lots of different people,
so there is almost no reason to stay in a f*cking terrible relationship
just because you love the person.
“Trust Your Gut”
Your gut and intuition are essentially the unconscious
pattern-matching you have accumulated throughout your life.
- If you are an expert or have plenty of experience in a situation, your gut decisions will be very strong and accurate.
- If you are inexperienced in an area, listening to your gut will generally lead to a terrible decision.
Emotions are short-sighted and easily influenced.
Your default position should be to distrust your gut
and use analysis instead, unless you have accumulated
enough experience for your gut to earn the right to be listened to.
“Fix Your Relationship With Yourself First”
While it makes theoretical sense to heal your relationship
with yourself before getting involved with someone else,
it is highly impractical.
People will love you even if you don’t totally love yourself.
In many cases, the best way to learn how to love yourself is to be
with people who love you despite your own self-doubt.
“Everything Happens For A Reason”
This advice is a copout.
People usually say this when someone has gone through
a difficult failure or rejection and doesn’t want to face the reality of it.
It serves as an escape hatch to avoid accountability.
You need to learn how to face difficult moments honestly,
which means owning your mistakes and poor decisions.
Washing it away by pretending the universe has a plan short-circuits
your ability to reflect and learn.
It is your job to learn from painful moments;
it is not the universe’s job to deliver explanations.
“Live Every Day Like Your Last”
This piece of advice does not scale and is only useful
in extremely narrow situations to prevent people
from overthinking minor things.
If applied literally to any situation,
it would lead to incredibly destructive, short-sighted behaviors.
“Cut Toxic People Out Of Your Life”
This popular trend has been taken too far.
Most people are bad judges of what “toxic” means, and often,
the person cutting everyone out is the toxic one themselves.
You should have a very high threshold for banning someone
from your life, especially family members.
The definition of what is considered abusive
or toxic has expanded so massively that people
are destroying familial relationships over minor inconveniences.
Part of being a functioning adult is learning how to get along
with family members you might love but not necessarily like.
“Closure”
Closure is a hallucination that only exists in your head.
Going back to your ex or digging up old trauma
to find closure never works.
The only thing that will give you a feeling akin to closure is moving on
and finding something new and meaningful in your life.
Once you find that, it allows you to let go of the old thing
and look back at it objectively.
You only truly get closure when you reach the point
where you no longer want or need it.
