Dear person with a few stories behind the advice,
Please come down from the mountain
I would love a little of your wisdom. Please do not climb a mountain in preparation. We have neither the budget nor the footwear. I was picturing us at a table, with you saying, Here is something I learned the awkward way. That is a form of expertise I trust, particularly when the awkward part involved your previous conviction that you knew exactly what you were doing.
You have made choices I have not faced yet, and changed your mind about things I am still confidently misunderstanding. I would love to hear a little of what those experiences taught you. The lesson can be wonderfully specific: how to apologize without adding a speech, what to ask before accepting a responsibility, when a second attempt deserves a different approach. The official instruction manual for being a person appears to be missing. I suspect somebody put it somewhere safe.
The instructions are better with a story
A sentence of advice becomes more useful when I know the situation it grew in. What did you believe at the time? What happened that surprised you? What would you do differently now? You can tell a small part of the story without exposing every private detail. I am interested in the conditions around the lesson, not only its polished conclusion. Most advice leaves out this useful background, like a recipe whose first instruction is simply, Prepare the thing correctly.
Your experience need not apply to everybody. What worked in one family, place, profession, or period of life may need translating elsewhere. You are welcome to say, This helped me then, or, I am still not sure. Those qualifications make the story richer. I would rather inherit a useful question than an instruction too rigid to fit my own circumstances.
Tell me what experience changed for you, including what you are still wondering about.
Corrections to the previous edition
I would especially like to hear about an opinion you changed. Consider it a correction to the previous edition: the author regrets the confident nonsense on page twenty-three. Perhaps you once valued speed and learned to ask another question. Perhaps being dependable came to include knowing your limits. A revised belief tells me that experience can make a person more curious, rather than just louder at dinner.
We can also make room for things that did not become neat lessons. A mistake may still feel uncomfortable. A choice may have had mixed results. You do not owe me a triumphant ending, and I will not turn a difficult experience into a cheerful slogan on your behalf. If there is something you would rather leave untold, leave it there.
No lectern will be provided
Video, voice, and text are all welcome. A minute is a friendly starting point, with room for a longer thought or a few sentences. No lectern will be provided; I have nowhere sensible to keep one. Your pauses and occasional laugh at your former self belong in the telling. You can use your own voice instead of the one people suddenly acquire when giving a speech.
Your reply goes to me, the person who invited you. I will ask before sharing it with others, and we can keep other people's names or private circumstances out of the story. Passing on experience should still leave you in charge of what you reveal. A generous answer can have a boundary around it and remain generous.
An attentive reader, with questions
I may ask what you mean or how you arrived there. I may see something differently. I hope that can be part of a real conversation, with respect in both directions. You are offering experience, and I am responsible for considering how it fits my life. Neither of us needs the other to agree in order to stay interested.
There is no penalty for missing a day, and no expectation that wisdom will report for duty every morning. Tell me something when it comes to mind. A phrase from a walk, a recollection over tea, a thought you would like someone younger or simply differently experienced to hear. We can make room for a little understanding at a time. You need not produce a proverb before breakfast. Even the mountain people presumably have mornings when they just want their toast.
OUR LITTLE PROMISE
Begin with something you wish somebody had explained, or something you are glad you learned yourself. I am interested in the person who lived the lesson, including the uncertainty and the changes of mind. Your experience has a voice I care about. I would love to hear a little more of it.
With curiosity, and absolutely no mountain equipment