Everyone’s an Expert (Especially This Time of Year).
There are more people giving good advice than there are people following it. Scroll for five minutes as the year turns, and you’ll meet philosophers of discipline who haven’t exercised since last year’s resolution, relationship gurus drafting threads between arguments, and productivity experts procrastinating on their own bullet-pointed lists.
And to be fair—the advice is often perfect.
Drink water. Get sleep. Save money. Set boundaries. Move. Meditate. Let go. Journal. Focus.
It arrives in tidy lists, hopeful threads, and videos with calm background music. The problem as the New Year approaches isn’t a shortage of wisdom. It’s a surplus of it—and a shortage of willingness.
Following good advice is inconvenient. It asks us to change habits, not just retweet quotes. To practice restraint, not just admire it aesthetically. To live differently, not just curate a feed about it.
Advice feels powerful because it costs nothing. Action feels expensive because it demands consistency, humility, and that uncomfortable moment where you realize you are the problem you’ve been explaining so eloquently to others.
The truth is, most of us already know what to do. We just keep hoping the next list, the next book, the next “word of the year,” will finally be the catalyst that lets us avoid the hard, quiet work of actually doing it.
Real growth happens offstage, without an audience or a quote graphic. It looks boring. It feels repetitive. It’s a morning you choose the water, the walk, the quiet work—not because it’s inspiring, but because it’s the pact you made with yourself. It doesn’t get many likes.
So maybe the goal for the coming year isn’t to seek better advice. Maybe it’s to take one single, good piece you already know—just one—and actually live it.
Even when no one is watching.
Especially when it’s inconvenient.
Precisely when you see it applies to you, not just to the people you imagine need to hear it.
Because wisdom isn’t rare.
Practice is.
And yes—I’m acutely aware this, too, is a piece of advice offered on the cusp of the New Year. Perhaps let this be the one you don’t just read, but begin.
