What do you do when you’re in a fix? When you’re stuck in a mess or in an unproductivity limbo or going through a gush of emotions or frustrated by your situation or struggling to arrive at a decision? Do you meditate over your problems till you find enlightenment? More often than not, after a certain level of self-introspection and continued dilemma, we turn to some outside perspective for an objective picture and hopefully the best suited solution. We might approach the people around us who we trust, or just seek refuge on the internet, in hope of the best solution from an expert advisor or from someone who has overcome similar challenges. Well, let me burst the bubble right at the outset, most of the advice that you’ll get in your life is nonsense.
Generic gibberish
The first source of external advice that we turn to are our friends, family or anyone we trust, and believe they have our best interest in mind. Some trusted elder like parents, who might have a more experienced take on your situation. Or your sibling who you trust and can be vulnerable with about your predicament. Or some office friend who possibly faced similar challenges in the past. Who you approach can be divided in two categories of people based on your assumptions – (i) they know you well and won’t judge you and your muddled situation (ii) they know better than you about the situation and hence will be a better judge of the right way. The first category being the more emotionally driven and the second being more logical, it is understandable of us to approach people who we are comfortable with, even if they don’t completely understand the technical details of our problem. The second option however is very much based on our assumption that the other person is somehow more qualified than us to make a better decision for a problem particular to us.
The advice that you receive can vary greatly depending on which category of the two you approach. Furthermore, the advice that the other provides you is going to be coloured by two assumptions – (i) how the person sees you and your situation (ii) their own life experiences. Two different peers at work would give you different advice depending on their view of these two assumption categories. A senior might have more experience and ideas, but their solution can’t be a guaranteed success for you just because it worked for them. This essentially brings it down to the fact that each ‘advisor’ will give you advice from their personal version of reality. And since the experiences informing one’s realities are unique to each person, one set of advice which worked at a point in time in one person’s life might not work for you at this point in time at all. Different people hold different perspectives about the same thing — a thing acceptable to them as a solution might not fit within your value system. Out of desperation you might try out the suggested path, only to find yourself deeper in the mud, or living by something you can’t imagine being sustainable in the long term. We often fall in the trap of ‘the more the merrier’ and believe that the more varied perspectives we have, the more informed we would be, making us better equipped to make the best decision. Contrary to this, we in fact run into a ‘paradox of choice’ where the more options we are presented with, the more difficult it gets for our brains to zero down on one alternative — like how you have countless movies at your disposal on Netflix and somehow you still take half an hour to decide which one to watch. A psychological study was conducted in a food mart where one set of people on day 1 was provided with 24 varieties of jam and another set on day 2 with only 6 varieties. One would think 24 varieties of jam would have helped customers decide the perfect flavor. The results of the study however showed that people who had more choice were one-tenth as likely to buy the jam as people with less choice.
The idea of approaching someone else for advice or helping us make a decision is also rooted somewhat in our belief that the other person knows better. Honestly, my experiences suggest that people generally don’t know much stuff. No one knows anything. Everyone is winging it along too, based on their own previous experiences, learning on the way, and taking advice from some different set of people. For example, as kids we think our parents know everything, but as you become an adult yourself you realize raising kids was a new experience for them too. They probably didn’t know better and tried to do the best they could. Everyone is just trying to do their best and make the most out of a situation. So, seeking solutions for your unique problem in some general advice might not be the best idea. No two people and their realities are alike, so we can’t expect generic advice from a bunch of people to act as a panacea to our problems. As Carl Jung said, every individual is an exception to the rule.
Conversation > Advice
Well, standard advice is nonsense. But that doesn’t mean we should stop asking for help and suppress our worries. It is in fact healthy to seek help for viewing your issues objectively. In contrast to seeking advice from people who in your head are a level above you, the perspective from having a levelled discussion about your conundrum with another person can be way more insightful and valuable. If you’re the one seeking solutions, you could have a conversation about your situation with either category – the trusted or the experienced. Conversation with ‘the trusted’ can be easier than that with ‘the experienced’; in the latter, both parties need to make sure they get rid of their internalized and assumed roles of the ‘great expert advisor’ and the ‘poor directionless soul’. A healthy back and forth about the problem will act as your ‘thinking out loud’ process where you can bounce ideas off of each other and comprehend the picture a little better, beginning to see the way to a solution. If you are the one giving advice, always keep in mind that people that come to you ‘seeking advice’ aren’t necessarily reaching out to know your final verdict. You might feel the need to act as savior and provide a solution in return of the trust the other has shown by approaching you. This ‘pressure’ can lead you to make the situation all about yourself while you give opinions based on your personal experiences. As an effective ‘advisor’, try providing a space to the other person where they can drive a conversation and over the course of discussion reach a better position to decide what they want for themselves. Counselors or Therapists, who one might think are the epitome of this category of work, don’t really give out advice — they listen and guide the other to their own solution. As Amit Varma also says, listening is the most important part of a conversation.
There are tonnes of ‘productivity gurus’ and ‘life coaches’ on the internet who will tell you hacks and provide advice to you for every imaginable problem. Not to say that everything they suggest is baloney. There are some scientifically backed tricks and techniques that you could use as tools to make your life better. And you can always learn from others’ experiences. But we also need to remember that their advice, like all advice, comes from the perspective of the person giving the prescription. Like merely imitating the routine of another successful person won’t make you successful, copy pasting someone else’s advice to your own life won’t make much of a difference. But taking the suggestions from a discussion you had with a friend or the perspective you gained by even professional help where you aren’t just emulating but acknowledging the uniqueness of your problem and its solution could be way more useful. This short podcast episode discusses how you can effectively “advise” people who trust and approach you.
Advice is usually scam, but it need not be.
Well, what do I know. That’s just my opinion. *wink wink*
Read Between The Life 