Though people generally mean well when giving us advice, you should always take it with a grain of salt. Ask yourself these questions: Are they advising me to do something that would be in my best interest, or simply something they would do in my situation? The two are certainly different. Are they telling me to act in a way that's consistent with how they dealt with that situation, so as to validate their own behavior? Are they expecting to get anything out of it? Let me give you an example. When I was torn between career choices, two people in my family coaxed me into becoming an accountant. Why? Because they were accountants themselves.  Though I offered myriad reasons as to why the other fields I had in mind could potentially be better fits, they didn't care to listen. They insisted that "we" (meaning myself and my two accountant family members) could all reap great rewards from my becoming an accountant, including the prospect of starting up a famil...