Writing Prompts - Advice

Twice a week I put a writing prompt on the board, and my students have to spend the first 7 minutes of class writing. I have decided to tackle these prompts on my blog. So, here it goes, my first installation of writing prompts:

Today the writing prompt was...
What is the best advice you have ever received? Explain.

To be quite honest with you, nothing is sticking out in my mind. I know that I ask for advice all the time, but it's not very often that I will use the advice I receive. My sister gets really upset with me about this very issue. When I ask her for advice she fully expects me to use her ideas. When I don't, she doesn't understand why I asked for her input in the first place. What she doesn't understand is that the advice actually helps me, but not necesserily in the way that you might think. Hearing other people's input on things helps me to figure out what I want to do. Usually I will use bits and pieces of other people's advice and add my own twist. So, even though I don't necesserily use the advice people give me, it helps me to come to a conclusion nonetheless.

Advice people often try to give me is "don't worry about it". Well, that's a lot easier said than done. Because usually the "it" is what someone else thinks, and that is just something I cannot ignore. If people are going to be thinking about me, I would prefer that they be thinking positive thoughts at all times. I desperately hate the thought of anyone thinking anything at all negative about me. It's a flaw of mine. Who cares what other people think? I do, that's who!

It wasn't necesserily meant as advice, but one thing that a friend wrote me in a note in high school has always stuck with me. It's a quote by Maya Angelou that says, "You did then what you knew how to do, when you knew better, you did better." I have loved that quote since the moment I read it. To me that quote was saying it's okay to make mistakes, as long as you learn from them. So, I guess even though it wasn't meant as advice, that's how I took it. I try to learn from my mistakes. And, I always try to do better next time.