In retrospect, this seems obvious - but I think all real realisations are that way, aren’t they?
I’ve been told by many people throughout my life to “only ever trust yourself” - I never really interpreted this correctly and as a result, thought it was some closed minded and shitty advice; turns out I was wrong.
The really important differentiation here is between “only trusting yourself” (or more specifically, the implication of not trusting anyone else) and trusting your instincts (which I think is a much better way of putting this idea). Trusting your instincts is extremely important - sometimes they’re wrong, but most of the time they aren’t.
Sounds ludicrous right? But really, if you don’t think you can rely on your own seemingly rash judgement, how do you feel comfortable trusting anyone else’s judgement? It makes no sense. In the last 6 months or so I’ve rapidly become a much more confident person, much of this I attribute to trusting myself; there are more instances than I care to mention where I’ve acted upon someone else’s advice (in the past) in spite of my gut feeling being different, only to realise months (or years) later that I was right.
Sounds obvious and silly to the initiated, but I wish I had the sense to realise this a long time ago.