The Source of Advice

When you take advice from someone, make sure they have some corollary experience with the subject of the advice.

Here’s an example; someone who worked on a dairy farm when they were young told me I shouldn’t let my kids drink milk. Oh, you worked on a dairy farm! You know about milk? Honey, pour that white cancer-serum down the drain and let the children have their cereal with soy!

Do you think that’s what I said? Of course not, my kids drink milk regardless of what dairy-guy had to say. Why? Because their doctor told me to have them drink milk, that’s why. The guy who worked summers on the dairy farm just wanted the industry to go away because he hated working on a dairy farm. Yes, he made some other points about the awful things in milk, pasteurization, etcetera, but he never made points about his medical degree and could never really answer my question about how western civilization flourished drinking cow-udder-poison for the last several millennia.

My doctor had experience raising children, feeding them and ensuring they went away to their parents with advice that would make them hale and strong. The guy who worked summers at a dairy farm hated hard work and cows and probably children. Take advice from people who understand the subject of the advice.

So why would anyone take advice for managing pain during a workout or any other physical endeavor from someone who exercises for a living? If you’ve ever read an article in some glossy mag plastered with some dude with not-drawn-on abs about getting through pain, or getting over your strength plateau, or enduring exhaustion, you’re taking advice from the wrong person. Why? Because that person responds to pain and exhaustion and sucking at exercise differently than the rest of us, otherwise no one would pay them to write about fitness.

No, when someone nearly faints from a small amount of muscle pain, but continues in spite of nearly fainting, take advice from that guy. Take advice on dealing with plateaus from someone sees a plateau and mistakes it for a nice, horizontal surface for napping. You listen to a wimp to learn how to be less wimpy. If you get advice on wimpiness from mister or misses abs-glossy-mag all you’ll get is some lengthy form of ‘cut it out’ or ‘get on my level’, and you’ll deserve it.

Wimp Credentials

At this point you want to see my wimp license or union card or something. Fine.

Most writers would tell you about how they were chosen last for softball or how they failed P.E., and I would patronize those writers by cooing at their oh-so-original story and telling them how it must have affected their childhood and turned them into the dull, creativity-sucking parasites they are today.

For me, being picked last only meant the beginning of a sun-drenched torture where ridicule would follow my every off-balance leap and poorly-aimed kick. Running to the wrong goal would have been an accomplishment because it meant I somehow got the ball. Fouling was most of my game-time participation. I was never excited that my team had won or lost, only that the game was over and I could go back to drawing spaceships or writing bad poetry.

My one victory in team sports showcases my wimpiness. I think it was middle school. I actually understand football now but all I remember at the time was that kids were forming arbitrary lines and running in directions I couldn’t understand. If a ball would have at some point been dropped into my hands, I would have blinked and maybe peed a little.

Anyway, we were all wearing these nylon belts with blue and yellow velcro flags stuck to them. Someone who had the ball ran by me and I remembered that this game required that one team take the flags of the other. So I reached out one spindly hand and dared to grab the flag.

Staring at the limp bit of plastic in my hand, I grew fearful. Were we grabbing yellow or blue flags? I was sure I had screwed up and took the wrong one… but no one was screaming. Looking up, shock was on everyone’s face. “Idiot tackled him,” someone said. More heads turned. The P.E. coach blew the whistle because that’s how his species communicated a nearby predator or maybe it was mating season.

No one could believe it; I had done something competent on the field of play.

So I am a wimp. If my credentials don’t satisfy you enough to take my advice you’re just showing off.

Now, here’s some things I’ve learned about being less of a wimp: