The Best Advice is the Advice You Don’t Take

At the end of last year, when I was bright behind the eyes and surprised that I would be taking over Craccum I spoke to the editor at the time, Andrew, to find out what I was getting myself into.

The tradition of Craccum is an oral one, as in we handover to the next generation with an afternoon of questions, exchanging details for further questions, and a pat on the back. Not a foolproof system by any means, and despite my many (MANY) years of schooling, my notetaking is hardly flawless.

But valuable piece of wisdom I gained from our former editor was ‘write a lot of editorials’. This way you could have a backlog for weeks where you are garbage and haven’t got your mandatory offerings the opposite side of the contents page. I will note that Andrew never actually managed it himself, but it was a big learning point for which we could dish out some sage wisdom.

That is probably the one piece of advice I really remember from our December Q&A. It is also the advice that I never followed through on. At the beginning of the year when writing the fun little blurb to my editorials, I thought it would be #relatable (and if we are completely honest reminiscent of most of pre-university entire schooling life). Past me had so much hope, so much optimism. I can’t believe I genuinely thought that when I had time, I was going to write those editorials not once, but twice, in our two previous uni breaks. At that rate I might as well commit to catching up on every lecture I missed from the last three years.

So here I am barbeque sauce on my titties writing this editorial – much later than I should be, still trying to figure out the story I am actually trying to tell. At least I am not alone, as I recall Andrew telling me that he was so stuck for ideas he wrote an entire editorial about cooking chickpeas, and I am 90% sure that made it to print. 

Following advice is hard, and following good advice is harder. So my advice to you is to follow advice. But this is bad advice. Hopefully somewhere in the advice paradox I have created you will do the shit you need to do.