Adrian Barich: the good, the bad and the ugly of advice, including leaving your phone outside the toilet

I have a good friend who I take advice from. Now, this statement in itself doesn’t seem to be an earth-shattering revelation but I actually believe it is.

You see, I’ve noticed most people don’t follow good advice; in fact, most don’t even like it or want it. Some even resent it.

As John Steinbeck wrote in The Winter Of Our Discontent, “no one wants advice — only corroboration”.

However, despite the above, as we reflect on this quirk of nature I am prepared to give some advice and this time, I expect you to all take notice, please (and it’s the only advice I’ll give . . . at least for this week’s edition of Being Barra).

And here is today’s wisdom: never take advice from people who aren’t getting the results you would want to experience. There it is. That’s all I’ve got for you.

My friend fits that criteria, of being someone I would be willing to trade places with. He has a really good grip on life and its meaning and is one of the best people I think I’ve ever met.

Previously, I was more in the Oscar Wilde advice zone, like when the legendary Irish writer said “the only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself”.

But on the other hand, I also concur with Agatha Christie who said that “good advice is always certain to be ignored, but that’s no reason not to give it”.

I mean, who can resist (even if you should) telling people what they are doing wrong and what they need to change?

Getting a good scare is probably the most successful route to people changing poor behaviour; always a better change agent than good advice.

And I say this as I pause to tap my new Apple watch and see that I haven’t stood up enough today, so can I get off my butt and reach my target before the end of the day? Or words to that effect.

And that brings me to mindfulness, which my friend recommended to me to cope with a particularly stressful time I’ve been experiencing lately.

If you haven’t tried it, it’s basically a sort of a mental training practice that teaches you to slow down your racing thoughts, let go of negativity, and calm both your mind and body.

Here’s how it works: for between five and 30 minutes a day, you find a quiet place and focus on your breathing. And here’s the good bit: your goal is not to stop your thoughts but to become more comfortable with them.

Simply be aware of them, but remain calm and keep focusing on your breathing. Some advise imagining your thoughts as passing clouds, and just watch them float by and shift and change. If you find yourself getting distracted by your thoughts (which I can promise will happen), don’t be hard on yourself. If your mind drifts off, just practise returning to your breathing and refocusing on the present. Easy, eh!

And that, in turn, leads to my weekly “it wouldn’t happen in my day” lecture. Many of you reading this will be boomers like me and of course, we can point to this mindfulness stuff as a very modern invention.

When I was growing up, we didn’t need a special way of thinking, because we had plenty of time to be at peace with our thoughts. Guess why? Because we didn’t have an incredible entertainment machine in our hand for most of the day.

We spent a lot of time on our own gazing at nothing in particular. As kids, we got kicked out of the house in the morning and returned home when it got dark. We had a lot of time on our own, most of it spent waiting for friends.

If we caught a bus or train, we looked out the window. Why? Because we didn’t have a phone to scroll. Waiting for someone or an appointment? We would just watch people and think. And as for sitting down in the toilet; well, what better place to contemplate the universe than on the throne?

Magazines in the toilet came along in about the 80s, then that morphed into using your mobile phone to pass the time, until now gen-X,Y and Z are never without their modern security blanket, are they? Not even in the smallest room in the house.

I challenge everyone to try and leave their phone outside the bathroom and spend that time just thinking. I bet you can’t do it.