I can waste a lot of time reading motivational stuff. I love reading good advice and tips on how to do things better. It certainly is a substitute for actually doing things better. It takes no effort at all to read and nod your head in agreement. Hmmmm. Very sage. Have you tried the “Smile Shower”? Using your shower time to smile for no reason to breed positivity? Now I’m imagining everyone I know: faces wet, water dripping in their eyes, grinning like the Cheshire Cat. I did try it once, but I’m too busy in the shower. I’ve got heaps going on. I’ve been thinking about a waterproof dictaphone, or note-taker. So many ideas in the shower…

But I digress. My question was, who is qualified to give life advice?

In the history of humanity, has anyone figured out how to do it properly? Of all the brilliant minds, gifted artists, super-human athletes, heroic humanitarians – did any one of them have it all? Is there a single human that we can look up to as a role model for how to live life properly? Somehow I think not. We are all just trying to figure it out in our own way.

Before self-help books and life advice bloggers, there was religion. The Bible, the Qu’ran and the Torah are probably the closest thing to a life instruction manual that we’re ever gonna get, and we’ve seen how that’s worked out. The hypocrisy of the fallen leader mocks the entire system of authority and advice. Not only the big guns – the disgraced priests and corrupt politicians – but even on a smaller scale, the divorced marriage guidance counsellor, the neurotic psychologist. Humans, everyone of us.

I am not saying that we should give up on trying to help each other, to lending support and giving guidance, to mentoring and teaching. I am simply saying that no individual is above us, no single person is on that next rung. To sit in judgement or to hand out advice as if you have it all worked out is arrogant. And we are all guilty of this. Thinking we know what’s best for our friends, tut-tutting at people’s parenting skills, sanctimonious Instagram posts of healthy meals. Even what I am trying to say now. What the hell am I trying to say? I am trying to apologise for ever thinking I had a clue.

Only together can we work it out. The Brains Trust of Humanity. By combining our knowledge, like one giant Care Bear Stare, harnessing the power of our Shazzan rings or crossing the streams like the Ghostbusters. Two heads are better than one and seven billion are even better.

So let’s take the advice of Run DMC – lines that I quoted to my fifteen year old son:

One thing I know is that life is short 
So listen up homeboy, give this a thought 
The next time someone’s teaching why don’t you get taught? 
It’s like that (what?) and that’s the way it is