Things That Can't Be Imparted

There are many overlapping themes (some may say patterns) present in my previous romantic relationships, but the one I find the most comical is that anywhere from two weeks to almost two years after the relationship ended, I would find a beautifully handwritten letter in my mailbox, and in said letter were the words “I should have written to you sooner.” I could hear the words in the sound of their voice ridden with heavy melancholiness.

For context, few gestures mean more to me than a handwritten letter; letters are raw expressions, they are indicative of reflection, an offering of gratitude, and in their own form, a piece of art; they are words you can hold onto for a lifetime, eventually one day turning into a timeless relic, unlike fleeting spoken words. For those that are or were close to me, to know that I love handwritten letters is to know that the sky turns dark at dusk, but for some reason, my previous partners would rather have run a marathon barefoot over cactus spines than express their feelings to me in ink. Maybe those words felt permanent like a tattoo - too painful to erase and better in a cheaper and reversible spoken form.

I tried many times and in many ways to explain through tears and bundled fists that not everyone receives love the same way but my desperate attempt at advising my partners how to treat me only shot words into the ether like a rocket with a one-way ticket to the moon…

…until we broke up of course, and then the letters came flowing like a hydraulic damn without an off switch.

It was only after their foggy glasses were washed clean with defeat that they were able to see what they were blind to earlier.

This week’s post is not about love letters or romantic partnerships, it is about life lessons and advice and how both are impossible to impart upon someone.

As beings that depend on relationships to live a prosperous life, it behooves us to create opportunity and well-being for those around us. We want better circumstances and outcomes for those we love, and if we can shape those experiences, we indubitably will. We mistake this as an opportunity to assert our knowledge and experiences in the form of advisement or life lessons to those we care about, even when it is not asked for.

So, we’re all culprits; we’ve all done it before - imparted a life lesson to someone we know. We wanted to help; we wanted to share our experiences; but more likely than not, we made a bad situation worse.

And we’re all victims too; we’ve all been on the receiving end - someone in our life offers advice when we weren’t ready to hear it; it went in one ear and out the other only to be remembered in a distant day in the future.

While life lessons and unsolicited advice are devised to be beneficial, they are more often than not detrimental.

Imagine this. You’re sitting at a long table with your extended family - baby cousins and long-lost-aunties-three-times-removed included. At all corners of the table, heads nuzzle in towards one another, in pairs of twos and threes, sharing snickers and hostile comments in faint whispers that disappear like vapor into the dim ceiling light. Your uncle Tim burns brighter than the dinner candles emitting rage talking about his wife’s much too hands-off parenting style, and your mom’s sisters are all bouncing in their chairs with a wide-mouth cackle over some family drama you can only gather snippets of. Your baby cousin Tim Jr. tells his mom to shut up as she tries to airplane feed peas into his tiny, sparsely toothed mouth, and suddenly, like a bomb deployed, the entire table, red-faced and shock stricken, turns to face him. “Tim!” They all yell at the same time, “be respectful.”

Ironic

When surveyed, parents state that teaching their child to be respectful is one of the three most important life lessons they can impart. However, telling a child to be respectful, without demonstrating consistent respect, is a fruitless endeavor. This child will age to learn that respect is subjective until they experience a moment that teaches them otherwise. Such an undertaking is about as futile as handing a child a book without ever teaching them how to read.

What I find interesting about the topic of advice and life lessons is that we live in an era where the self-help section of Barnes and Noble clears out quicker than the buy one get one half off table right when you walk in. It appears that we have created a culture that satiates itself by consuming personal development and personal growth material - material whose axiom is advising the reader on how to solve a problem or a limiting belief in their life.

We live in a world where individuals are continuously seeking advice and directive yet at the same time rejecting advice and directive. They want to choose from who and what sources their guidance comes, and when offered by anyone who was not intentionally pursued, advice morphs from an invaluable gift to a devastating loss.

This tells me a few things about navigating advice-giving:

• People have the personal resources to find answers within themselves, therefore advice can only be digested when intentionally sought out. On the flip side, this is the very reason that receiving unsolicited advice is so hurtful. Advice that is not asked for, comes packaged in a layer of judgment and assumption - a dagger to your ability to problem solve on your own.

• Giving advice often minimizes every being’s unique life experience. The times I have offered advice, I’ve neglected to recognize the snowflakes in another’s life from mine by offering guidance that was specific to my experiences and failures. The value of advice is not in the words, the value is the lesson learned through failure and the words are merely descriptions - captions on photos from a singular point in time. Life is a much better educator than you or I who can only advise based on our biased and finite experiences.

• Those who are trusted to advise - therapists, authors, or your next-door neighbor Joe Shmo - have a long and consistent track record of being an exemplary pillar of the topic they are advising on. They are servant leaders who teach by interacting and behaving with the world which leaves impressions far deeper than their words.

The hard reality about imparting life lessons is that you can’t. The best way to teach those that surround you is to adopt a servant leadership mentality. If you want to teach respect, you must first teach yourself to uphold respect. You lead by example and then you release control; that is when life and failure step in to do their thing. Humans won’t learn responsibility until they see the effects of negligence. Humans won’t learn gratitude until they feel the hurt of being unappreciated. Boyfriends won’t write letters until they feel the pain of heartbreak.

I think what is most beautiful about leading by example is its unseen value. The lifetime value of servant leadership is one of the most powerful intangibles. One can never truly know how far and wide the impacts of leading by example spreads. I feel deeply that anyone has the potential to inspire generational change, perhaps without ever even knowing. You don’t have to have a platform or a following; you only need what you already have: your voice and the ability to act.

One time, a lady I barely knew had the chance to teach me a lesson, but instead, she taught me the value of paying it forward. I can’t remember her name but I remember her grace. She guided me in a simple yet potent way through life. Through my actions, I hope to teach others the same and permit her lesson to prosper endlessly. Her servant leadership created a chain of impact that might continue growing until the end of time, and that is beautiful.

Thank you for reading! To all my female readers, happy International Women’s Day💃, and to all my readers, have a wonderful weekend. Talk to you next week ❤️