Do Not Jab Your Eye With a Sharp Stick

I took a phone call yesterday from a friend who is a little conflicted about his behavior.  I personally wasn't conflicted at all with his behavior.  I thought immediately that what he was doing was out of line but I kept my mouth shut, a surprising turn of events all by itself.  I try to remember how I was treated when I was getting started -- how I'm treated today -- and I managed to work up the courage to bring up a matter for discussion.  By and large, I didn't get any "You idiot!" or "You're wrong!" pronouncements.   Instead, I got peppered with questions that helped me explore the issue from all angles so that I could see for myself what I needed to do.  Once, I asked my sponsor for an answer on a delicate matter and he laughed in my face.  "No sir, I'm not going to take any crap from you if this doesn't work out the way you want it to, " he said.  


We help each other investigate things so that we can make good decisions on our own.  A big part of this is that some of these matters are very complicated and frankly, we don't know what we're supposed to do.  Another big part is that we haven't done a very good job of running our own lives so we don't think we should try to run anyone else's.  It's bad enough when I screw things up personally, affecting people close to me; it's another thing altogether when I attempt to screw someone else's life up.  I keep my advice to simple matters; "Don't stick your hand in that running machine" and "look before you cross the street," stuff like that.


That being said I also tell people what I think.  I stress that what I think is my opinion and nothing more, and is not advice that needs to be followed or is even any good.  Nonetheless, all of us have some good ideas.  I know I've learned things from smarter people by listening to their advice on matters on which they may have more experience or wisdom than I do, which is almost every matter known to man.


Oh, yeah, don't pour gasoline on fire, either.  I'm comfortable with that advice.