More than all vitamins, proteins and other
nutrients, we are forced to consume loads of advice every day in life. Every
other thing may be costly, scarce or out of reach; but not advice. There are many
advisors all around. You started hearing them since the day you formed in your
mother’s womb. I am sure you woke up abruptly from your sleep in the cozy
cradle hearing the high sounding advice.
It continues all through your life - the worst would be the teenage
years: Every uncle who comes home, every neighbor who monitors from her gate your entry and
exit, and every stranger you see on the road end up advising you
for no reason. Then it takes a dip and after a while starts pouring in once you
are in the employable and marriageable age. Once you are settled, you take the
baton and start advising others. It goes on.
Look who is talking??
I also sometimes get into an unnecessary and
unwarranted advisory mood. Every New Year eve I resolve not to advise anyone
that year. But I tend to get into an advising mode within hours. Why do I think
that it is my responsibility to advise every person who spends a few minutes
with me? It is absolutely foolish to believe that the other person sincerely
adores the wisdom flowing from the other end! Why do I feel that it is my
responsibility (who delegated that to me first of all??) to give suggestions
regarding someone else’s future? Utter nonsense!!
Unsolicited advices
The worst is the tendency to shower unsolicited
advice on all and sundry. It could be a co-passenger or a person standing next
to you in the queue to get a ticket or boarding pass. Or it could be the
impatient one waiting along with you to get his hair cut on a Saturday morning.
There are many categories of unsolicited advice givers.
source for image: Pinterest.com
Advisor heroes
It is said that if someone is not good at doing
something, he will be selected as a teacher to teach that subject. If he fails as
a teacher, he will be given the role of a preacher. If he fails in that, they
would make him an advisor. (I was given the designation ‘advisor’ in an organization,
perhaps for my failure in the earlier roles!). We can tolerate occasional
advisors but not the so called advisor heroes. Who is an advisor hero? Advisor hero is the
one who boastfully narrates how he has done differently in every occasion and
got success. He would be categorical to project as one person who has never
tasted failure because of his infinite wisdom and intelligence. The approach of
this category of advisors is in contrast to those advisors who are honest
enough to share their failures and suggest lessons from such experiences.
Advisor heroes will create a sense of inferiority complex in the other persons
rather than motivating them.
Advisor kings
The advisors under this category consider
themselves generous kings. They give an impression that they are doing a great
favour by giving unsolicited advice. They not only give advice but also go on
telling others about the advice given to particular persons. They compromise on
the trust and confidentiality to get cheap publicity and undue recognition.
Omniscient advisors
There is another unique breed of advisors who
consider themselves expert in every subject under the sun. I had come across a
young unmarried omniscient male advisor (not a medical practitioner) who can
even give expert advice to married women on subjects such as menstrual problems,
pregnancy care and breast feeding. Next moment he will be talking on how
Reserve Bank Governor messed up the money market regulations. His shallowness
doesn’t permit others to ask any questions to him. He would definitely run away
to another place to shower his advice.
Advice and social media
From early morning to late night, one is
bombarded with ‘words of wisdom’ forwarded by people. Many times, just into a
few lines of that long text, we tend to worry why the sender himself never
thought of following the advice in the first place. If someone posts an
experience or a thought in social media, that does not necessarily mean that
the person is trying to seek an advice. Sometimes we tend to give advice in
the form of comments that may not be the intent of the post and the discussion might
go into an altogether different direction.
Advising in front of others
Even a psychiatrist or a psychologist prefers
giving advice in secret to the person who needs advice. But some passionate
advisors will give advice in public to particular person. One could see in
trains and in public places, the loud voice of advisors who generously wish
that ‘let others also pick up a few drops of my valuable wisdom’. There are
many amateur advisors who would like to advise the parents in the presence of
children, wife in the presence of husband and vice versa, managers in the
presence of their subordinates etc.
99% of advice are unproductive
Most of the psychologists and counsellors would
become jobless if this truth is known to the entire world. Apart from those
career, managerial or technical advice, most of the advice showered by the ‘advisors’
are aimed at changing the personality or behavioural pattern of another person.
But it has been scientifically proved that substantial part of an individual's personality, character and behavioural traits are based on genetic factors and rest
is through environmental factors. But the environmental factors have strong influences
on a person only when she or he is a child of age 5 or less! That means, even
parents, relatives, teachers, friends or social institutions cannot bring in
any lasting change on a person at a later stage. They can only bring in
incremental changes! (But in some cases, even a small change is a big relief
for the community). Therefore, the energy and effort we take in actions aimed
at drastically changing another person is unproductive because that can’t
result in anything enduring. It is an irony that everyone is on a frantic mission
to change the other person rather than trying to adjust to the predicaments
they are in. Advice overdose will make the other person more defensive and make
him escape from you. Ultimately the relationships get strained.
You will become a good listener when you put a
halt to your advising temptation
This is indeed an information pushing world. Everyone
receives huge gigabytes of information thrown on them from various online or
offline sources and from different cross sections people. They want to instantly
(many times without even reading) share them with other target groups. Even in
private conversations, there would be a tendency to dominate the interaction by
throwing the information and ideas to the other person rather than listening to
her or him. There is a tendency to advice before even hearing the other person.
When we control the temptation to advise the other person, we will become good
listeners and will become more acceptable to others. People look for those who listen
to them patiently rather than those who pour them with advice without
understanding them.
Don’t give it FREE! Charge them if you can
If you are an expert (authenticated by
community standards through degrees and recognition) and if you strongly feel
that you have a better solution at hand (sometimes, degrees alone would not
give you expertise), then share your knowledge with those who specifically ask
for it and charge them adequately, unless there is a charitable cause or the
person deserves a complimentary advice. Free advice is generally not acted
upon as people may not value it. There are many free seekers of professional advice.
They would go to many advisors at a time akin to a market survey. It is good;
as long as they are ready to incur the costs. If we approach a professional
advisor, we should be willing to adequately compensate him for the time devoted,
even if he is a friend or a relative, unless that person refuses to take it.
The problem for the writers and bloggers
For a priest, a preacher or a teacher,
unsolicited advice are part of their mission and they don’t have a choice.
They are very much in the profession of advising. But even in such cases, too
much of unsolicited advising would be counterproductive.
Writers of fiction can survive without giving
any advice. Stories, paintings, poems and cartoons need not contain a ‘moral
of the story’ or a ‘piece of wisdom’. But for writers of non-fiction and
bloggers of social causes in particular, there is a necessity to take the
writing to a logical conclusion. And conclusions invariably contain as few
suggestions as well. Therefore my blogs also turn into an advisory mode at the end
because analysis of a subject without conclusion and suggestion is not
appropriate when dealing with non-fiction themes.
Let us stop the temptation of giving unsolicited
advice. But let us always be willing to
share our thoughts if the other person is sincerely wishing that from us.
© Sibichen K Mathew Views are
personal. Comments welcome
