The Wise Don't Advise

You can see plenty of such people around you. They are experts in every matter. They are walking Google and talking Wikipedia. There’s no statement called ‘I don’t know’ in their life. They can talk about anything under the sky and advise anyone in the world.

Here are some samples:

Trump wasn’t elected for the second time because of his favouritism too much towards the business sector. You know you don’t need any special treatment for cancer; just chew neem leaves every morning for 6 months and see the results. I challenge any type of cancer at any stage.

They are geniuses!

It doesn’t need a long time or effort to prove that they are not authentic about the information they give. Just ask them: what is the source of their information? any authentic book? website? words of any expert in the field? any survey? any live example around them? No, they just present some vague baseless illogical information with absolutely zero research.

There are others who show their expertise in every field through their comments or feedback.

Kohli made a mistake; he must have played cover drive a little late. A R Rahman should change the way he composes his music. There is no newness. It’s all monotonous now. To reduce the price on essential goods, Modi should stop exporting those necessary items to other countries and focus first on fulfilling our needs. The advising goes on.

Such people wouldn’t have held cricket bat in their lifetime. They wouldn’t have touched the keyboard with their fingertips too. They wouldn’t even know if the goods they are speaking about are really exported. But they comment without thinking about what they speak.

Some others still go one step ahead and advise on others’ personal matters.

Mechanical Engineering is the evergreen branch; just don’t think anymore and just tell your son to choose that branch. Are you not thinking about your daughter’s marriage? It’s already late. Start searching and get her married soon. I tell you: stop taking any English medicine right from today and do yoga and your diabetes runs away in two months completely.

Ask them: Have you done the same Mechanical Engineering course and achieved something great in life? No. Do you know what the boy is interested in? No. Do you know if the girl or at least if her parents are interested in getting her married? No. Do you know their plans, expectations, financial status and so on? No. Have you stopped taking any medicine immediately and started controlling blood sugar levels in your body by just doing yoga even when it was exceeding 400 mg/dL? No.

They throw advice just because it is other’s life.

Does it mean we should never give or seek advice? Should we always research and be a subject expert before commenting or criticizing? Should we not interfere in other’s life? Well, the answer is almost Yes.

We tend to lose our value when we advise without it is being sought. Unsought advice is like an unwanted pregnancy. Either the advice will be aborted or the advisor himself, or both.

When we speak about something serious, if not the subject expertise, at least we need some necessary knowledge and basic research. Remember that either the listener is sharp enough to understand we do not have the content if we speak vaguely or we are just misleading a person who believes that we know about what we are speaking. The first one brings our level down and the second one is a sin.

Even if someone seeks advice on something we are not fully confident about, an honest ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I’ll find out and get back’ helps much. Let’s not try to be a guru pretending we have answers and solutions for everything.

Sometimes our advising habit is an effort to overcome our inferiority complex. When we know deep inside that we are not experts in any subject or we are not special in any way so that others can identify and appreciate us, we tend to fight that feeling by advising or speaking something baseless. It’s the trick of your mind to keep your ego saturation level stable. Otherwise, we may feel useless about ourselves and go depressed.

Sometimes it’s our superiority complex on ourselves and underestimation about the person in front of us that makes us give advice. When someone thinks he knows everything, he loses the ability to think about others' knowledge and expertise.

Most of the time, it’s our insensitiveness that makes us advisors. If we are insensitive we don’t care whether the other person is interested in receiving our advice. We start advising even if not asked for. Worst of all: we advise without standing in their boots. Before advising, we forget to ask ourselves: if we were in such a situation, facing such a problem, would we implement the advice that we are about to give? Or am I just giving a piece of advice just because it's not my problem and not my life?

It’s not always the fault of such advisors; sometimes it’s also the fault of the seekers. We sometimes seek the advice of the carpenters to advise us on the best car to purchase. We approach the wrong people. We do that out of your trust, love, or respect we have for the person. But we forget to draw a connection between what we want to get and who is right to help us get what we want. This is how a person who made a great career as a religious guru after dropping out of high school for getting single-digit marks in every subject advises you on the career options for our children.

Not every piece of advice is vague and useless. It just depends on whom we approach, who gives and how we receive it. Some advise us purely out of care: drink sufficient water, reach home before dark, don’t talk to strangers, don’t wear these kinds of dresses, don’t skip food – the list goes on. Here, it’s simply the care! It’s not about our ignorance or inability about managing ourselves. Even the person who tells all these knows that you know these. But love is a sweet stupidity. It’s foolish to analyze such advice, idiotic to get irritated of them, insensitive to tell them not to advise because you have grown up and are now self-managed. We should simply listen, smile and move on.

In the end, I want to give three bits of advice, just three: One, learn to advise only when sought by others and seek advice only when needed, with the right people. Two, neither be too arrogant not to take any advice from anyone nor be too weak to take every advice from everyone. Three, learn to ignore the advice that comes from various people on the way if you feel they are unwanted, including all these three bits of advice.

Usually the wise don’t advise.