Before checking the Problem With Pretty out of the library I had independently begun Saying No Thanks to Advice.

Think about this: Why in the early New Year is there a glut of Finding Better Habits special edition magazines targeted to women readers only? Like the Real Simple remedies on offer. I bought their 2026 issue and read it cover-to-cover.

It’s possible to be anguished by advice. This week I’ve been thinking about the fact that women editors are churning out these challenges for other women to live up to.

You don’t see Make Yourself Better Men! special editions in the New Year do you?

As a girl who feels I’ve been a feminist since I was a teenager I’m saying No Thanks to this Advice today. One piece of advice in the Real Simple Finding Better Habits I realized that the majority of us cannot follow–the mandate that whenever you exercise you exercise at the same time of day every time you exercise.

Herein lies the rub that allowed me to rub out feeling terrible. Real Life is Not Real Simple for 90 percent of us. If becoming healthy were as simple as adhering to a strict routine without fail more of us could do it.

In my view there’s No one Right Way to feel think act live dress and love. The idea that you and I can do the right things all the time every day is a myth too.

Let’s face it: when we can’t live up to this special edition Advice we can feel crummy. And give up altogether.

Only real life cannot be lived following an instruction manual created by who-knows-who. And real life happens to all of us: Our mother or father goes into hospice. Our grandfather ends up in a coma.

However our life goes off the rails I say: being adaptable is the best advice anyone can give us. As I would think most of us have full-time jobs or are in college full-time. You and I aren’t going to spend our limited free time on remodeling our psyche or physique to please who-knows-who either.

Maybe when we do exercise it’s NOT going to be at 9:00 a.m. every time we lift the first dumbbell. And maybe when a relative is in hospice we’re going to exercise once a week. And go visit them on the weekend.

One gem of advice along with the other advice I do take is to drink water every day. The Anguished Advice in magazines: Not so fast.

Remember if Real Life were Real Simple none of us would be faced with the choice of having to choose between spending time with an elderly relative or whittling our abs into a washboard.

The choice is clear to me. YOLO.