Advice

- Look both ways before crossing the road.
- Be prepared[1]
- Be yourself
- To be yourself you have to know yourself[2]
- To be yourself you have to know your place in the world which means you have to know enough of the the world to find your place which may not be obvious
- To be yourself you will have to have been other people
- If you love someone you should probably tell them
- If you love someone you should probably tell them soon
- If you love someone you should probably... look I'm not the person to tell you when is the right time, my qualifications are more on the wrong time, and waiting too long, and maybe one day finding yourself with one hand full of regrets and the other holding a beer, sitting dry eyed while someone tells you about someone you loved once and how that story is pretty much over
- A hat can keep your head cool in summer
- A hat can keep your head warm in winter
- A hat can keep your head dry, even when there's a lot of wind that would turn your umbrella inside out, though a hat with a brim, which keeps the rain off you, can also catch the wind and go flying down the street where you'd lose it except a friendly passing motorist runs over it so you can catch up
- The right advice at the wrong time can be as bad as the wrong advice at the right time, though it's never the right time to give wrong advice
- The timing of advice can be as important as the quality and often people don't want advice they want someone to listen or just sympathise with them
- Maybe think a bit before offering advice as even good advice at the right time might not be welcome or the best response to the situation
- Maybe measure twice, cut once is what I'm saying[3]
- If someone says they have one piece of advice they probably have more
- If someone says they have one piece of advice and they actually only have one then it's worth listening to if only because it's what they think is important
- If someone says they have one piece of advice and they write a rambling essay on their blog they've probably got something on their mind and even if the advice is terrible or irrelevant or impossible to tease out from the tangents it may still be worth reading because they think it's something they want to say
- Try to get some sleep and eat a couple of meals every day, and keep hydrated.

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This is an entry for the Thanet Creative Writer's Writers Writing Competition responding to the prompt  The one piece of advice I feel qualified to give. In real life I have many qualifications, both official and otherwise, and as this piece no doubt shows if I am shy about giving advice based on them it is because often advice is not as welcome or useful as we might hope. If you have a comment or, indeed, advice on this piece then you can do so either below or at this subreddit.

[1] This is of course the Scout motto. "Run a team like a Scout patrol, run a meeting like a game of D&D" is advice I'm qualified to give but may be over-specific.

[2] "Know Yourself" was carved on the Oracle at Delphi, as was "Everything in Moderation." Presumably when they say everything, that includes doing things to excess, so long as you're moderate about it; after all even moderation should only be taken in moderation.

[3] An old woodworking proverb I first came across in Neuromancer.