The older I get, the more I realize how important it is to carefully select who I listen to. I've always been open-minded enough to hear people out and consider what they've said before internally processing it and deciding whether or not to let it stick. When I was younger, I tended to give pretty much everyone equal weight and consideration. But as I've gotten older, I've learned to only listen to people who know what the hell they're talking about. I still try my best to hear everyone out, but I don't listen to everyone.
Ideas, opinions, and advice are of serious importance because they have serious impact on our mental health, both conscious and subconscious. What we give credence to affects not just our own ideas and opinions, but also our perspective, mental habits, subconscious fallbacks, biases, prejudices, logic, and on and on and on. The ideas and beliefs that we are exposed to in society at large and family/friends at small are of the utmost importance because they help shape us, for better or worse.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of bad ideas out there. There always have been because humans are unbelievably fallible and stupid, not to mention psychological science still has a long way to go in understanding our brains. These days in particular, however, there are more bad ideas floating around than ever before thanks to the Information Age. The internet has allowed anyone and everyone a soapbox, and bad ideas spread faster than wildfire. Heck, faster than the speed of light...okay no, that's not true. The internet is not faster than the speed of light. It's just a metaphor, okay!
With so many bad ideas out there that can steer us in the wrong direction towards mental and emotional unwell-being, it's critical we use extreme caution when deciding whether or not to listen to what we're hearing. So, over the years I've gotten more adept at vetting people and information. I don't even have to consciously try hard. When hearing new ideas and information, without even thinking about it, I always ask myself, "Is this person an expert? Do they know what they're talking about?" If the answer is no, I might still hear them out, but I won't listen. I won't let it sink in (at the least I'll do my best since just hearing something a lot is enough to screw up our intuitive thinking thanks to associative memory and ease of recall).
Sometimes, the answer is obvious. If I'm reading or hearing any sort of self-help, self-improvement, life-coaching, relationship, parenting advice, etc...anything relating to mental and emotional health, if the source is not a trained psychologist or clearly citing valid and proven psychology, then I take it with a massive grain of salt. There is too much destructive advice out there to risk it.
Plenty of other things are obvious as well. Career advice from someone who works professionally in recruiting or has a successful history of career coaching? Sure, I'll listen, otherwise it's just anecdotal nonsense from someone's own severely limited experience. Weightlifting form tip from a beefy personal trainer? Okay, thanks. From a random gym bro? Thanks, but I'll google that later.
While in a lot of cases it's obvious whether the source is an expert, sometimes it's just not clear or downright confusing. Several successfully married couples are giving me the same dating advice, but is that a universal truth or does it just work for their particular and unique relationships? Are their relationships behind closed doors even as successful as they appear to be? Golf swing advice from my dad who's a great golfer with years and years of experience: does that advice work for me and my body or just for him? Am I doing what he's suggesting or is something lost in translation? Can he see clearly the big picture of all that I'm doing wrong or just a small piece?
The waters get murky at times. They get clearer and more Carribean-blue with age, but confusion still abounds. So all I can do is come back to my heuristic: is this person an expert and do they know what they're talking about? If the answer is yes, then listen and process with great consideration. If the answer is no, then hear respectfully but don't let it sink in. If the answer is unclear, then take it with a grain of salt and google the heck out of it later to see if experts back it up.
With this method, hopefully, I'm reducing the amount of harmful ideas and information I let influence my intuitive and critical thinking, my conscious and subconscious mind and heart. At the very least, I've got my guard up and I'm doing the best that I can. There is too much at stake not to.
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