Advice

My mom, my advisor. 

Advice wants you to want it. Advice trails your skirt, trying to get your attention. It will peek around corners in parent forms, teacher forms, expert forms, experience forms. Sometimes it winks right in your face. Advice avails itself because it wants the best for you. 

Pride wants you to ignore advice. Pride disregards the tug on your skirt.  Pride bypasses advice’s forms, causes you to blink when advice winks.  Pride doesn’t let you ask. Pride prides itself because it already has the best for you.  It thinks. 

And then… a practical tip invades your hearing. A sermon makes sense. A friend speaks smarts. A spouse shares perspective. Advice didn’t ask you, but suddenly you act on unbidden advice. Advice subtly reminds you that you need it.  And wonders why you don’t ask?

You know you’ve grown a bit when you ask advice. When you recognize pride and tell it to step aside. When humility and deference and learning replace pride. When you seek, accept, and follow sound advice — when you want it.

Just want advice. It wants you.