Everyone’s a genius about someone else’s problems. Try taking your own advice for a week.

Distance makes thinking easy. When the situation belongs to your friend you can see the obvious move in seconds, because none of the fear or history is yours and nothing you say costs you anything. In your own life that clarity disappears under all the feelings attached to it. The advice is not better, it is just unencumbered.

Spend a week writing down what you tell other people, then read it back as though somebody handed it to you. Take the line you repeat most often and follow it yourself. If you cannot, that gap is worth a look, because it means the advice was easier than it sounded.