Advice deserves discernment, not automatic obedience or automatic dismissal. The question is not only whether you want someone’s life, but whether the truth they offer bears good fruit in yours.
I once heard a quote that said:
“Don’t take advice from someone whose life you don’t want.”
I don’t know who said it, or where I first heard it, but it stuck with me. It slapped me across the face—in the best way—because it made me realize just how many of the thoughts I carry around in my mind aren’t even mine. So many of the opinions I hold, the beliefs I’ve operated from, the truths I’ve clung to… they were inherited. Passed down. Imprinted. Spoken into me. And for some reason, my brain said, “Yeah, let’s keep that one.” Without question.
That quote helped me start sorting through the weeds of what I’ve allowed myself to absorb as truth. It gave me permission to pause and ask:
“Wait—who told me that?”
“Does the fruit of their life align with what they said?”
Whether it was about relationships, religion, marriage, business, or how to treat people—if I look at your life and it’s not something I’d want for myself, why would I let your voice hold weight in mine?
And honestly, that filter has served me really well. It’s helped me protect my peace. It’s helped me reclaim my mind. I’m grateful for it.
When a Helpful Filter Becomes a Wall
But here’s the tension I’ve been sitting with lately: It’s also a core value of mine not to throw people away.
You know that phrase, “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater?”
Yeah. That one.
If we only listen to people who sound like us, think like us, agree with us, or make us feel good, we end up living in an echo chamber. We get spiritually bloated—consuming only what affirms us—and slowly start believing everyone else should be just like us. And I don’t think that’s what it means to be a truly conscious, evolved human being.
I think the most amazing kind of human is the one who can sit in difference.
The one who can live alongside people who are nothing like them—
and still choose relationship.
Still choose communion.
Still break bread.
Even in disagreement.
Discernment Without Dismissing People
So then the question becomes:
How do I hold both?
How do I honor the wisdom of “Don’t take advice from someone whose life you don’t want,” while also staying open to the small golden nuggets others might still carry?
Even if I think they’re a little out there.
Even if their life doesn’t fully resonate.
Even if I don’t want to become them—
can I still let one small truth from them shape me?
That, I think, is the real work.
It takes maturity.
It takes discernment.
It takes soul.
So today, I say:
Don’t take advice from someone whose life you don’t want… unless you’re open to the possibility that even they might be carrying a tiny piece of wisdom meant for you.
Let it enter.
Let it surprise you.
See what magic unfolds
when you become someone who can hold multiple truths,
carry contradiction,
and welcome duality.
Honestly?
I can’t think of a more powerful way to evolve than that.
