Yes...But No...Well Sorta.
How many times have people given you advice that is in stark contrast to each other? The last two weeks this blog has stated "If it seems hard then stop," followed by "if it doesn't work, try it again." Aren't those in contrast to each other? Yes, how can both be true? Well that is if you are looking at absolutes, only a Sith deal in absolutes.
As I have tried many different things in life I have learned that there are many things that are true...sorta. And other things that are completely wrong....sorta. Other times it is a mix...sorta. If you switch to a quantitative (or qualitative) approach over a Boolean approach you get different insights. Here is an example, if you get shocked by static electricity it will hurt, I would score this a 3 out of 10. To some it really hurts (10 out of 10) and to others not at all (0 out of 10) but from my experience I would average it out to about a 3 out of 10. Sometimes they really zing other times it is a tickle. You might say it is an 8 out of 10 only because you have the joy of the really good zaps.
Good and Bad
It is common to understand that there are good people and bad people, but have you ever met someone 100% good or 100% evil? I have never met anyone with an absolute alignment. I would say most people are somewhere withing a 60-40 blend of good or bad. I have come across people who are, what appears to be, 80-20 blend but these are your "wow" people. If you measure yourself you might be generous and give yourself 70-30. But you know all your weak spots and all your strong spots.
The Underlying details
The reason why so many things are not binary is because we know that there are many many other details that fit into the why of something. Your cup of water is not pure H2O but it is close enough. You breathe Oxygen but in reality there is a lot more in the air than just Oxygen. Be aware of the extra details that are not explicitly stated.
Taking Advice
The hard part when taking advice from anywhere, is trying to figure out what they left out of the details. Why should you run a mile a day? Is it because the giver of the advice has ADHD and that is the only way they can focus? Why should you eat a candy bar a day? Is it because the advice giver is undiagnosed diabetic?
Take every piece of advice with a bag of salt. Understand the details behind their advice and figure out how to adapt it to you. Many time advice given is under 30 seconds but it took them years to figure it out. Makes me wonder what all the failures they had to go through to figure out a 30 second blurb.
When you can get the full story of how advice was learned. This gives you more information to figure out why their advice conflicts with someone else's advice. Many times as I have picked the contradiction apart I have found that both are saying the same thing but from two different view points. When you figure this out you have the magical insights that help illustrate how something actually works.
Seek out contradictions and figure out why they contradict.
Image Credit: https://thinkingispower.com/the-blind-men-and-the-elephant-is-perception-reality/