Sweet Advices or Harsh Lessons?

Lessons often come painfully. They may appear as an emotional experience, a financial loss, a great disappointment, the loss of an opportunity, or even the deprivation of sustenance. These experiences are painful, and some can even be destructive.

It is, therefore, surprising to find someone who benefits from a piece of advice despite its ease and equally surprising to see someone who does not benefit from a lesson despite its harshness!

What you fail to learn as advice will come to you as a painful, harsh lesson. The more you heed advice, the fewer life lessons you’ll have to endure. The more you neglect lessons, the more you will suffer. None of us escapes both, but the wise are those who listen to advice before they are struck by a lesson.

Lessons are not necessarily the result of mistakes you have made. Sometimes, they are meant to correct your life’s course, redirect you to a path you wouldn’t have chosen through mere advice, or prepare you for something great ahead.

Because lessons put them through a tough experience—they feel what they have endured, remember their struggles, and recognize how their lives were before. On the other hand, advice comes detached from context, making it easy to overlook because it does not feel like part of their experience.