People don’t really want your advice

Why do people even try to give advice to others when all those imparting their wisdom are doing is wasting their breath?

I got out of the advice business long ago after it became apparent people are going to do what they want, no matter how good or logical the advice you give them. As I have said before, opinions are like noses, everyone has one and they intend on keeping the one they have.

With that said, it seems some folks will still go to great lengths to share their wisdom on life with others, hoping they will be able to steer their confused and befuddled friend back on the straight and narrow. They will listen to hours and hours of sob stories, revelations, confessions, and diatribes muttered by their sobbing friend who can barely pause long enough to catch his or her breath before continuing the tale of their real-life dramas while permitting not a word from anyone else even edgewise.

And, at the end of these epistles, these volumes, these novelettes, the wide-eyed friend will emerge momentarily from their self-involved trance to ask the question ‘What do you think’?

See, right there is where you need to bow out and say ‘I don’t know,’ because even before that question is asked your friend has tuned you out and decided what he or she is going to do. Anything you say after that point may as well be said to a rock because they aren’t hearing you. In actuality, all you can do is hurt your friendship at that point because what every morsel the person may remember from your answer can only be used against you later as it is told to someone else who will get mad at you.

‘Well Tommy told me that I ought to leave my cheating husband,’ Debbie tells Susie, who in all likelihood is the one cheating with Debbie’s husband anyway. It won’t take five seconds for Susie to text Debbie’s husband and tell him about Tommy’s meddling in their business, thereby sparking a feud between Tommy and Debbie’s husband.

In the meantime, the person seeking the advice will never put it to use as Debbie will likely get back with her cheating husband anyway, and in the end, both Debbie and her cheating husband, and Susie for that matter, will all hate your guts for the rest of your life for you ‘sticking your nose’ into their business.

So, should I turn my back on my friend and not offer advice? No. In actuality, what people are searching for is not your brain or your years of knowledge, they simply want your ear. People need to vent otherwise it stays inside and eats away. There’s just something about vocalizing a problem which relieves the stress, making a person feel better.

All your advice does, at best, is fall on deaf ears, and at worse, complicates the original situation. If you want to be a friend, listen, nod and act sympathetic, but when that inevitable question comes, where your friend ‘seeks your advice,’ don’t offer your advice, but instead, just offer your support.

Hey, this works out whether it’s questions of matrimony or whether you should use a 7 iron or 6 iron. If your advice is actually taken, which it rarely is, and you’re wrong, then you are blamed for messing things up. If you are right, then your correct answer will be forgotten moments later. Advice can get you blame, but it will hardly ever get you credit.

My best advice is never to give advice.

Duane Sherrill is a reporter for the Standard. He can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at [email protected].