Advice For The Young At Heart

The blog title comes from the Tears For Fears CD of the same name.  (The name Tears For Fears should be bad enough, but the link to a Wikipedia page because they don't maintain their own site should be scary enough.)  The blog meaning has to do with being asked for advice and asked for help, but then following neither.

I guess after my career in EMS, now and then I am seen as a mentor.  I don't claim to have any Phil Jackson Zen like quality though I guess in this business that would belong to the likes of Jon Politis or Dan Gerard.  While I don't put myself in their category, somehow I have managed to speak across the country for the better part of ten years.  Somehow I have survived this industry which tends to chew people up.

So...I understand why I am asked for advice.  I even am honored when people ask for my help.  However, if you ask for advice or help and then ignore it, you are showing more than disrespect, you are showing contempt.

These situations remind me of Proverbs 12, verse 15: "The way of fools is right in their own eyes,

but those who listen to advice are the wise."

I can tell you now, I do not have all the answers, but those I do have, I share.  It confuses me when people ask you how to travel the road you have already been down, but then want to take the steering wheel and return to the mistakes that has their car with three tires.  Oh well.