I’m Fixing to Not Take Anymore Anonymous Advice
I’m fixing to not take anymore anonymous advice.
When someone uses anonymous in place of a name it should always be a warning sign that something could be awry. If someone giving advice is not displaying their name as the source of this advice, take warning and take the advice with a grain of salt.
If someone comes to you and says something like, “I can’t tell you who told me to tell you this, but here’s what they said you ought to do,” close your ears and run for the hills because chances are the original source, or possibly the source in front of you, is wanting you to make the same mistake they did so they may enjoy some company in their own misery.
Of course there are exceptions to this, as there are in everything. When Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong Custer received an anonymous report that there were 2,500 Indians just over the hill ready to face his 197 men, perhaps he should have listened.
But remember, that’s the exception, and not the rule.
Always beware of “they.”
They told me when I graduated from high school that I ought to join the Army. On those later occasions when I was sleeping on the wet ground and eating cold hash out of a can, I kept wondering who “they” were.
They told me one time I ought to give up my boring job and go with this hotshot new outfit. Six months later when uncertain conditions caused the hotshot outfit’s cost of goods to triple, it caused me to be out on the street, and once again I was wondering who “they” were.
A few years ago I heard from anonymous sources that I ought to invest in this dynamic company called Enron. You know the rest of that story.
Not long after that my cousin Elroy told me he had heard on the street that we ought to invest in energy drinks. Well, I knew better than to do that because of my past experience of heeding anonymous information about investing.
Remember, I told you there were those exceptions.
Just recently I received an anonymous letter suggesting I ought to be fixing to get out of the column writing business.
I’m fixing to try to decide if that’s the exception or the rule.