This is the Moth Radio Hour.

I'm your host, Chloe Salmon.

As an older sister, I love giving advice.

My brothers might say I love telling them what to do, but I object, Your Honor.

I say there's a lot of value in having someone pull up a chair, look you in your eyes,

and give you their honest and objective take on whatever ails you.

Now, acting on that advice,

another thing entirely. And I think that's okay. If we always did the sensible thing, I expect there would be far fewer good stories in the world. And who wants that? So in this

episode, stories of advice, given, taken, and not so taken.

And a chance to ponder your own wisdom-giving chops when I sit down with one of our storytellers,

who's also an advice columnist, who brought in some juicy questions to share with us.

Let's get going.

First step is Stacey Nicholson.

She told this story at a main stage in Fargo, North Dakota, where we partnered with Prairie

Public Broadcasting.

Here's Stacy live at the Maw.

Okay. I don't have a single memory of ever having lunch in the lunchroom during my entire four years of high school. I must have, but if I did, I likely ate my lunch as quickly as possible and then spent the rest of the lunch

period roaming the hallways, because I do have a lot of memories of roaming the hallways.

In my mind, the tables in the lunchroom were reserved for the cool kids, the big groups of friends

who sat around laughing and making plans for the weekend ahead, and I was definitely

not one of the cool kids. I was a shy, weird, introvert, but I wished I could be the kind of

person who could sit around a table laughing and making plans with friends. Then in my 20s, I developed

...