Life gets so much easier when you learn to let other people work for you, for free.

Many people are willing to do incredible amounts of work for you, and give it to you so you can succeed.

They ask nothing in return.

Most commonly, this comes in the form of advice. Suggestions. Ideas. Sometimes criticism.

It’s not all good. Some is worthless. For the price, that advice is worth what you paid for it.

Taken as a whole, unsolicited advice is net positive. Very positive. There are pearls hiding in those pebbles.

There is a trend, among younger people, to take offense at unsolicited advice.

It is view as an affront. An implied doubt in your ability or authority.

The result is twofold.

1) People feel insulted when others are trying to give them something that may be at least in part valuable.

This is weird. It’s weird to be insulted by a gift.

2) People end up doing the hardest work themselves. Creating ideas and solutions and noticing what’s wrong with a project is very hard work.

Why wouldn’t you let someone else do this work for you? It is a mystery.

Most of us give freely of our hard-earned experience. Most are like me—we don’t give it where it is not appreciated.

Growing up, my parents had pat responses to this:
- do it your way
- you’ll learn

They were often right.

I refused my parents’ good advice enough that they eventually stopped giving it.

Even when I asked for it.

I learned many of the same lessons they did, the hard way, as a result.

So feel free to take offense when people give you unsolicited advice and suggestions for improvement.

They will stop soon enough and find people who like to let other people work for them.

When you look around and notice how other people “have it easy” and “get ahead without working,” know that they are probably putting other people to work for them.

If you are reading this thread, you are doing it too.

See? It don’t hurt so bad.

If you worry about other people “wasting your time,” you need to practice your ignoring.

Your parent probably tried to teach you that too when you were too smart for your own good...

Learning to learn from people who are “too dumb and uneducated” to ever possibly teach you anything is an essential part of adulting