The Worst Advice I Ever Took (And Lived to Laugh About)

I’ve always believed that life teaches its greatest lessons in two ways: through wise mentors or, more often, through terrible advice that leaves you thinking, “Well… that was stupid.”

This is the story of the latter.

It All Started With a Broken Heart

A few years ago, I found myself in the kind of heartbreak that makes you question everything. You know the one—where your Spotify playlist suddenly becomes a nonstop soundtrack of sad songs, and even your dog looks at you like, “Are you okay, buddy?”

My long-term relationship had ended abruptly. There were no big fights, no dramatic shouting matches, just that painful, quiet drift apart that somehow hurts worse than anything else.

My confidence? Shattered.

My appetite? Gone.

My friends? Eager to “fix” me.

And that’s when the worst advice I ever received came into my life, wrapped in the good intentions of my oldest friend, Riya.

“The Only Way to Get Over Someone…”

We were sitting at our favorite coffee shop, my eyes puffy from crying, her eyes sparkling with unsolicited wisdom.

“You know what your problem is?” she asked, stirring her iced latte with unnecessary aggression.

“Besides the fact that my heart feels like a stomped-on grape?” I replied.

“You’re too available. You care too much. You’ve gotta flip the script.”

I blinked. “Flip… the script?”

Riya leaned in like she was about to share a state secret.

“You need to date the kind of person who’s completely wrong for you. Get out there. Make some reckless choices. That’s how you move on.”

It sounded… ridiculous. But in my fragile state of post-breakup misery, it also sounded like a shortcut to healing. And let’s be honest—heartbreak makes fools of us all.

“Date the wrong person on purpose?” I repeated, trying to make sense of it.

“Exactly. It’s like burning your taste buds with hot sauce. Painful, but suddenly you don’t care about the mild stuff anymore.”

It was, hands down, the dumbest advice I’d ever heard.

And yet… I took it.

Enter: The Wrong Person

Three days later, I downloaded a dating app, armed with nothing but Riya’s terrible advice and a fragile ego. I swiped right on the first person who looked like chaos in human form.

His name was Zayn.

His profile picture featured him doing a backflip off a roof.

His bio? “Professional heartbreaker. Likes motorcycles and poor decisions.”

Perfect, I thought.

We matched within minutes, and before I knew it, I was agreeing to meet him for dinner. Well, “dinner” turned out to be street tacos eaten on the hood of his car in a parking lot. Romantic, right?

Zayn was charming, reckless, and every red flag I’d ever been warned about. He talked about how he’d never had a “real job,” how he hated commitment, and how relationships were for “boring people.”

Meanwhile, I sat there, nodding along like I wasn’t the poster child for boring, stable relationships.

But here’s the thing about bad advice—it’s like eating junk food. You know it’s terrible for you, but it’s weirdly satisfying… at first.

The Rollercoaster Ride

Over the next few weeks, my life became a blur of impulsive adventures with Zayn. Midnight motorcycle rides, parties filled with people whose names I couldn’t remember, and conversations that, in hindsight, made absolutely no sense.

I wasn’t healing. I was distracting myself.

And then came the grand finale of bad decisions: the skydiving trip.

Zayn had signed us up, boasting that “freefalling through the sky” was the ultimate metaphor for life. At this point, my common sense had packed its bags and left town, so I agreed.

There I was, thousands of feet above the ground, strapped to a stranger, wondering how my search for closure had turned into a literal near-death experience.

As we jumped, my entire life flashed before my eyes—including the moment I thought Riya’s advice sounded reasonable.

The Crash Landing (Figuratively… and Almost Literally)

I survived the jump. Barely.

The relationship? Not so much.

Two days later, Zayn ghosted me. Blocked. Gone. Like he’d never existed, except for the helmet hair and the lingering sense of “what just happened to my life?”

I called Riya, ready to unload my frustration.

“You were right,” I admitted. “That was the worst advice I’ve ever taken.”

“Technically, you survived,” she said, laughing.

“Barely. I jumped out of a plane, Riya.”

She chuckled. “Yeah, but you’re laughing now, aren’t you?”

And she was right… annoyingly so.

What I Learned the Hard (and Hilarious) Way

In the aftermath, once the embarrassment faded and my heartbeat returned to normal, I realized something important. That terrible advice? It didn’t heal my broken heart, but it did teach me a few valuable lessons:

No amount of chaos can fill the space of genuine healing. Distractions are temporary. Facing your emotions is permanent growth.

Bad advice makes for great stories… eventually. Sometimes the worst decisions give you the funniest, most ridiculous memories.

You can’t shortcut heartbreak. You have to feel it, sit with it, cry through it, and then, only then, can you truly move on.

Your true friends might give bad advice, but they’re still the ones who’ll laugh with you after the storm passes.

The Moral of the Story

Sometimes, life’s worst advice leads to the best self-awareness—if you survive it.

I wouldn’t recommend dating the wrong person on purpose or jumping out of planes to mend a broken heart. But I will say this: mistakes, misadventures, and even bad advice are part of the beautiful mess that shapes who we are.

Laugh at your failures. Learn from your choices. Love yourself enough to know better next time.

And maybe… just maybe… skip the skydiving.

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Thank you for reading...

Regards: Fazal Hadi