Don't give advice you're not qualified to give.

Let's just start of by saying that I am not complaining about advice given by people I know. I am the first to admit I am often in need of some of that even when I am less appreciative of the variety that is volunteered rather than requested. Even though I don't follow this advice to the letter or at all (in some cases) just keep it coming. Most of it will be appreciated at a future date when I am a little more willing to accept it.

Here is my real objection. Everywhere you look and I mean everywhere there is some 'expert' giving advice that they are clearly in no position to be giving. A book by some fitness 'guru' ( and I use this term lightly) was recently pointed out to me in work. This guy, whose name I've promptly forgotten, claims he get you in shape in 30 days and to be honest it's a somewhat dubious promise given that even I can see he's not exactly in great shape himself. I'm sure it's up there somewhere with not trusting a skinny cook (although with everyone trying to live healthier lives, I'm not sure that still applies to the same extent). Be wary about taking fitness advice from someone who isn't in shape. Perhaps that seems a little harsh but I would just find myself questioning how fail proof a method is if the person telling me about it doesn't appear to have succeeded. For the same reason I won't take make advice from the girls at make up counters who look as though they applied their own make up with a trowel. Sure I'll nod and smile but I don't think it's a look anyone really wants to replicate.

It seems to be these days that almost anyone can declare themselves an expert on fitness without needing anything to back that up. Well some of the advice you see in women's fitness magazines would certainly lead you to believe that. Every time there's a piece on the workout that will give you perfect abs, legs or whatever it's usually followed by a terrible and badly explained description of how to do complicated moves. It's done in such a way that the person following these steps would be guaranteed to injure themselves if it wasn't suggested they complete them with very light weights. So not only will they not be doing the exercises right, they wont be seeing any results either. Well done fitness magazines.

Obviously it's not the only area overflowing with bad advice and I would hate to make it seem like that's the case. I frequently find myself laughing, ahem I mean learning, from some of the relationship or how to get a relationship type books. There's new ones out all the time. I remember googling the author of one book that promised to help you get the guy. I thought surely this is just a terrible photo on the cover because If I was using books to improve my relationship chances then I surely wouldn't be taking advice from this smarmy looking fucker but no, it really was him. His name is Matthew Hussey and his book is called get the guy if you fancy a laugh or some advice from a skeezy looking guy. We also got another one in recently that promises to help make anyone fall in love with you. I think there's something on principle that I object to about those books. It's duplicitous which isn't really in my nature but it's also a little creepy. I would like to know I was with someone because of a mutual interest and not because they had read some book that taught them how to manipulate me into liking them and I can only imagine most men would say the same thing. 

I am all for taking advice and I will still continue to seek it from time to time but I only have time for good advice because I think I have proved myself capable of being an idiot without any extra assistance. Thank you