DR. WALLACE: I'm a guy and a junior in high school and I've had the same best friend for the past six years. We've grown up going to various schools together and our friendship has grown even stronger over the last few years, especially. We both look out for each other and root for each other, but there's something that truly bothers me. He tends to make some bad mistakes from time to time. These mistakes are what you would call kind of unforced errors. For whatever reason, he ignores things that are in front of him or thinks he can do something that's much more difficult than he realizes at first; then he presses forward and things go wrong.

Fortunately, some of these mistakes can be cleaned up and don't cause too much of a problem for him, but a few of them absolutely have. About a year ago, after watching him make several small mistakes, I spoke up and told him once to be really careful, as I knew he was going to do something new that wouldn't work out. He did it anyway, and even though I didn't tell him that I had told him so, he didn't acknowledge it to me ever either. My advice was solid at the time, but fortunately, that one turned out to be one of the smaller things, so even though it was not good and embarrassing for him at the time, he weathered it and just continued on.

Now he's on the verge of making another new really bad mistake that's going to have much deeper implications. I'm pretty sure he's going to follow through going down this wrong path within the next few weeks or so. Should I say anything at all to him, or just stay out of it since he didn't even acknowledge my advice the last time? I'd sure hate to see him make a big mistake that he could easily avoid with a minor course correction now. — Want to Look Out for My Friend, via Email

WANT TO LOOK OUT FOR MY FRIEND: The good news regarding your dilemma is that if you have stayed silent for a full year or so since you tried to intervene on what ended up being a relatively small matter back then. This definitely works to your advantage now.

My advice is to definitely approach him on this matter and speak your mind to him about what you see that could go wrong and what the fallout would be if he follows through and runs into great difficulties. Mention to him that you wouldn't have said anything at all if he weren't such a close friend of yours and that you didn't care for him and his well-being so much. Conclude by telling him that you had noticed various things over the last year, but decided to keep your mouth shut and let him make his own decisions on a lot of other different matters, even when you disagreed.

Then go on to tell him that because the implications of this particular situation could be dramatic, you felt obligated out of your sense of friendship towards him to at the very least bring this matter up and discuss it the way you see it. Tell him you will respect his decision no matter what he decides to do, but that you would be delinquent in your responsibilities as a close friend to not speak up this particular time. Also tell him that you're not going to make it a habit of bringing up any smaller trivial matters regarding his life that you become aware of. Tell him you'll only say anything if you feel it has a big potential downside for him.

Explaining things to him in this manner should keep things on an even keel between the two of you and hopefully provide him a lot of food for thought that he can mull over in his mind before he reaches his final decision either way.

MY PERFECTIONIST NATURE FINALLY HAS ME BOXED IN

DR. WALLACE: As a 19-year-old college student who lives on her own, I can make my own decisions regarding just about everything. However, I've run into a problem now that I'm a college student that I didn't have back when I was in high school. I'll readily admit to you that I am definitely a perfectionist and I've always prided myself on having a great output regarding everything I get involved with. This includes my grades, academics, friendships, relationships and even how I use my time.

Back when I was in high school, I could manage everything, accomplish my usual level of perfection that I required of myself and get everything done with enough time to eat, sleep and interact in life pretty normally.

But now that I'm in college, I'm definitely overwhelmed. I have a part-time job that I work about 20 hours a week on top of being in the middle of a challenging academic school year. On top of this, I have a new personal relationship I started just over a month ago and I've made several new friends at school that I enjoy spending time with as well.

I have finally run out of hours and minutes in the day to keep up with the lifestyle I've been so comfortable with the past six to eight years. What's the best way to fight my urges to make everything perfect in my life since I've reached the point now that I realize I can't keep up with that mentality? — Perfectionist With Time Constraints, by email

PERFECTIONIST WITH TIME CONSTRAINTS: The first thing that jumped out to me was that your letter mentioned that you were a perfectionist in how you used your time each day while you were a high school student.

To begin managing your time better from here, you need to realistically do an assessment of your studies, your grades and what career path you are seeking to achieve, if you've gotten that far yet.

You've already selected a college, as you're presently attending one. You're no longer in the position that you were in high school, perhaps fretting over your grades in order to get into a particular college.

Even though it may go against your nature, your best bet at this point may be to dial back a little bit of your perfectionism when it comes to your studies. I know this may sound like blasphemy to some students and could even seem counterintuitive, but given your perfectionist nature, I trust you're already an excellent, if not superior, student.

At this point, congratulating yourself on the achievements you've accomplished up to this point may be a good first step. Then exhale and allow yourself to achieve very good grades with perhaps only 85% to 90% as much time and energy devoted to your studies. Try this intentionally with just one of your classes to see what the difference is. The most difficult courses you can apply all the diligence you need, but in those courses you find a bit easier, do your best to refrain from putting in extra hours that may be counterproductive in terms of your actual grade achievements.

Managing one's time is different for every individual and my advice here is customized specifically for you given the details of your letter. Experiment a bit with backing off your perfectionism gradually in different parts of your life and note the results. Continue to monitor your time closely and eventually you may be able to overlay your perfectionist nature across your complete daily schedule to achieve meaningful positive results.

Dr. Robert Wallace welcomes questions from readers. Although he is unable to reply to all of them individually, he will answer as many as possible in this column. Email him at [email protected]. To find out more about Dr. Robert Wallace and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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