The Next Chapter

 We’ve all had times when someone has given us great advice, and we’re grateful for that person. Every time someone honestly tries to help us, it resonates well in our lives. Good advice is hard to find, however, because not everyone wants to help; they’d rather see you fail. But I’m an optimist, and I believe in the fundamental goodness of people, so I keep on giving and receiving advice. 

What is the purpose of advice? Often it’s to prevent you from doing something rash and sparing you the indignity of making a fool of yourself. There are other kinds of advice, of course, but this is the type that I most often deal with.

Many times advice can come as hindsight, a sort of ‘I promise not to let that happen again’ bit from a friend or confidant.

For example, I was once foolishly relieved of $2000 by a rather shifty fellow from the internet. He was as smooth as melted butter in a frying pan and gave me a false persona that would have fooled even ancient Methusela. He said he had seen my paintings online in one of my blogs and wanted to buy several of them. I, being naive about such things, jumped at the chance to sell my “work.” He said he worked on an oil rig somewhere in the Arabian Sea and that it was difficult for him to get ashore, so he needed me to arrange the shipping and payment. I agreed and I charged the total cost to his cards only to find out days later that the cards were stolen. Now I was on the hook to Square, who thought me responsible. They changed their minds though, when I showed them all the details  of the transaction in my emails. 

Determined to track down the theif, I contacted the RCMP in Ottawa and they gave me the advice I needed to see:

“Ian, (the investigator said) don’t ever do business on the internet with people you don’t know. Be sure to carefully verify that the persons you are dealing with are who they say they are. There are huge gangs of scammers in Africa who make billions of dollars this way every year from gullible people like you.”

And there you have it, folks: I pass it on to you. Heed it well.