There’s something especially frustrating about realizing you followed bad advice—not because it was malicious, but because it was normal. The kind of advice everyone nods at and that you are almost always required to take. Simply because it is such good advice that you can’t possibly have anything against it. I mean this is the kind of advice that fits in polite conversation and LinkedIn posts.
Some of the most destructive advice for creative people often takes this VERY SENSIBLE form. I mean one of my favorite terrible pieces of advice is: “Be realistic.”
It sounds harmless, right? Grounded. Wise. A call to humility. But what it really did—at least for me—was shrink possibility. It taught me to dream within frameworks other people had already tested. It taught me to ask smaller questions. To choose paths that felt “proven.”
I remember being told not to focus so much on writing.
To “keep it as a hobby.”
To find something more practical to pursue. A
And for a while, I listened. I let the voice of “realism” override the voice of wonder. I made safe choices. Applied for the sensible jobs. Stopped calling myself a writer unless I had something published to prove it.
I don’t blame anyone. They meant well. They just didn’t see the version of me that lights up when I build a world from scratch, or spend five pages on one conversation between imagined people who feel so, so real.
But still—that advice cost me something. Time. Courage. Maybe a few stories that never made it to the page.
The thing about “realistic” is that it often centers other people’s fears, not your vision. It wants you to be legible. Predictable. A good fit for the systems that already exist.
But I’ve since learned: some of the best things in my life happened because I ignored that advice. Because I bet on something that didn’t make sense to anyone but me.
So now, I keep a little internal filter. When advice comes my way, I ask: Is this protecting me, or limiting me? Is this helping me build something, or just keeping me from falling?
I still don’t have it all figured out. I’m still learning how to trust my own rhythm. But I’m done trying to be realistic.
I’d rather be faithful to the wild, slightly irrational parts of me that still believe the impossible is worth chasing.