No One Can...

"Nobody can tell you what's right for you to do, any more than they can tell you what your dreams mean. I've seen this happen in groups: Someone will share their dream, and somebody else will inevitably take it upon themselves to be the code breaker, pontificating about what the dream means and what it's instructing the dreamer to do.  It comes across as a kind of trespassing, like cutting in line or reaching bodily across somebody else's dinner plate to get the salt shaker.  To them it may seem like just friendly advice or feedback, but to the person sharing the dream, it may feel more like a hostile takeover. 'Quit giving me your damn advice,' my brother Ross once blurted at me in a moment of justified frustration. 'Just ask me questions and listen.' 

Help is easier to take if someone leaves it in a bowl on the back porch and lets us come to it on our own terms, rather than attempting to stuff it in our ears.  Better still if someone can do it with humor, making us laugh and then, while our mouths are open, feeding us.  

Instead of just searching for advice on what to do to respond to your callings, tell others what they can do FOR you. Guide the guides by telling them exactly what kind of help you need: 'I need fifteen minutes a day of listening and asking questions. I need the name of someone who teaches photography here in town.'"

~Gregg Levovy