The Problem with Advice
The Giving and the Taking
I love math. It comforts me to know… and to repeatedly be able to prove … there’s a field in which there is always a right answer. And all answers that don’t match the absolute “right” one are wrong.
No matter how you twist it, 2+2 will always equal 4.
Unless …
You’re working outside the decimal system.
That’s the problem with handing out advice. And with taking someone’s advice, verbatim. We all work in different metaphorical-number systems. I’m in the Sharon M system. And you aren’t. The best I can do is say, “This is what works for me. But you’ll have to find your own way … and your own solution … as only you can.”
My family was great (tongue-in-cheek) at handing out unsolicited advice. After being handed a piece of same, by my mom, I asked her why she did that. “It’s the only way I can feel useful,” was her answer.
While I commend her forthrightness, there’s a lot implied in that response, including: I’ll cannibalize you, in order to satisfy my need to feel useful. I’ll remove your autonomy. Call into doubt … make you doubt … your ability to make right choices. For yourself. By yourself.
There are other dubious elements, too. For instance:
- She was unhappy in her own life. Yet, she was advising me to make the same choices she had made; to walk her path.
- In youth, she had followed unsolicited advice from her aunt, who was only a few years older. She resented her aunt ’til the end.
I know of her resentment, because she often expressed it to me.
In his youth, my uncle rebelled against the family “shoulds.” Good for him. But it turns out, he wasn’t so much opposed to shoulds; he just wanted a different set of them. Became rather dogmatic in later years … merely substituting his way for the hand-me-downs.
Here’s what happened when someone followed his advice:
A friend of his was always complaining about his job. Said he hated it. Uncle said: Do what I did. Quit. I’ll tell you all the ins-and-outs of how you can manage without working. Eventually, the friend succumbed. Quit his job. And waited for everything to fall into place. Instead, his life fell apart.
Uncle is the one, who told me that tale. But apparently, he didn’t learn from it. Because he touted his way(s) ’til the end.
My psychology professor in college found out I liked math. Was always saying I should become a math teacher … clearly demonstrating that he knew me not. I’d suck as a teacher. But that’s beside the point. One day, as we chatted after class, he gave what he thought was the ultimate selling point, “You could create a lot of little you(s).”
Creeped me out. Even as a parent, I figured my job was: To become obsolete. Not to create a mini-me. According to my daughter, I overcompensated for years of being on advice’s receiving end. Which might be how society will attain balance, generations hence. With each successive generation going too far, correcting the errors of the preceding. Until we finally approach the zero-state of equilibrium. A non-perpetual-motion state. Next millennium. Maybe.
Giving advice is akin to saying, “Oh, you want to drive to Chicago? Here’s my route: I head East on I-(some number) until I get to (Some City); then, go North on I-(some other number).”
Only I’m coming from CA, and you’re in NY. If you follow my advice, you’re not going to reach Chicago. You’re gonna get wet.
Although (at this moment) we might stand together, we come from different territory … territory that evolves from our history, which is unique to each of us.
Everything depends on territory. And on which number system we’re working in. You have yours. I have mine.
Even if I try to explain my number system, I’m bound to leave something out. Not intentionally. But I got to my system one step at a time, taken from where I began to the place I wound up; and since I’m not an airplane, I don’t have a black-box recording of each step along the way.
And even if, by some miracle, I remember each step, something would be lost in translation ‘twixt my intent and your understanding. Because we operate in different intrinsic systems.
Wherever it is you want to go, you’re going to have to figure it out yourself. Pick up tools along the way. Even hand-me-down tools. But never assume that because an M.O. worked for someone else, it will work for you.
And after all that, here’s my unsolicited advice:
Trust yourself.
Trust that you will find your way. The right way for you. It might not be anyone else’s right way. But it will be yours. It’ll be your personal 2+2=4.
“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.”
“Doubt everything. Find your own light.”
“No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.”
~~ Buddha Siddhartha Guatama Shakyamuni ~~
