1. advice is really hard to listen to
not because you are resistant to advice, but because it is so inherently lossy. we hear wisened older people impart short adages and cliches and roll our eyes because of how commonplace these sayings are, but that’s because everyone independently comes upon these aphorisms!
when my parents warn me about something I have never experienced, I can only nod and act like I will listen — i will never fully understand the extent of what they mean until I experience it. This is true for these maxims: shit like “actions speak louder than words” go in one our and out the other until maybe years later, after having met so many people and been blindsided by sweet words and harsh actions, will we finally realize. huh. goddamn. the best way to summarize these emotional experiences is through telling others: “actions speak louder than words”
just as communication is inherently incomplete, advice is as well.
Yet, this also means, when giving advice, endeavor to be more helpful, rather than expect the other person to listen to you. you can convey the story of an experience, a specific thing that happened to you, or be vulnerable about why you now believe the advice — this is what actually communicates the depth of feeling.
because of this, I try not to worry too much about advice that is given to me while also making sure I don’t brush them off as “cliche.” things are popular and cliche because they’re good, and we should give them more credence for that.
Beyond that, lived experiences become intuitive knowledge. You can work on incorporating other people’s advice into your intuition without having to live through the consequences, perhaps through more self-awareness and “chunking” these concepts. This is why rationality-esque advice can be very helpful: it gives you terms for common advice, creating new language primitives. Cliche phrases like “map ≠ territory” or “give yourself slack” immediately remind you of the essays upon essays of advice attached to them — and you can build new primitives!
2. people tend to give the advice they need to hear
there are infinite advice blogs out on the internet and infinite posts on every possible aspect of friendships, relationships, dating, career, ambition, family… the list is endless. all of them seem so correct and so perfect of a way to explain away life situations, but when you look deeply, you realize the advice is way too specific and based only on that persons own life experiences.
the advice we give are usually only easily verbalized because it is the sort of thing we’re always telling ourselves. I warn my friends away from overcommitting or being too scared to say ‘no’, because it is a long-standing struggle I have myself, therefore I notice it more easily and know what sort of advice might actually help.
the issue is… that advice might actually only help me! when you read advice blogs next time, realize that the writer put it out in the world as a means to legibilize it to themselves.
3. reverse any advice you hear
I wonder whether everyone would be better off if they automatically reversed any tempting advice that they heard (except feedback directed at them personally). Whenever they read an inspirational figure saying “take more risks”, they interpret it as “I seem to be looking for advice telling me to take more risks; that fact itself means I am probably risk-seeking and need to be more careful”. Whenever they read someone telling them about the obesity crisis, they interpret it as “I seem to be in a very health-conscious community; maybe I should worry about my weight less.” — from slate star codex
Remember biases in advice! Someone that has a low risk-tolerance is going to be giving good advice, perhaps, but it will be colored by their bias towards less risk. If you know that about them + know that you have a higher tolerance than them, you should adjust for that. (And if you’re giving advice, don’t just tell them to do what you would do in their situation…)
Also, common advice is often based on common biases — when someone tells you to “call your parents more” or “be open to quitting,” they’re assuming you’re prone to undervalue future consequences (regretting not talking to your family more) or tend to avoid emotional upheavals (avoiding quitting because leaving is scary). These assumptions are often true for the median person, but allow yourself to decide if this is the advice you need. Advice sounds obvious because it matches assumptions you’re likely to hold, but these assumptions aren’t always universal.
In addition, advice might not transfer well across different cultures — your asian american mom might tell you to be frugal as if we’re still living in scarcity but you might be working in… like. big tech, and the amount of time and effort it takes to optimize your grocery list to save a few bucks is just not going to be worth it. This is why it is super useful to be able to switch between different mindsets and frames: for example, here, scarcity vs. abundance or east vs. west cultures. To be able to do this, you can figure out when advice might no longer fit its context or still get some value from advice even if it’s from “incompatible” worldviews.
4. don’t give too much advice
From another post I wrote recently… (sorry to literally quote myself but it’s pretty related :D)
in a way, i think this is a way to feel comfort in knowing others know what’s best for them. when trying to help someone or when trying to give someone advice, i think it makes sense to also remember that in the end, others have a better view of their own life than you ever can, and that even if [consequences are negative] it’s [still] a chance for them to learn.
this also means, when someone won’t listen to your advice, you need to think a lot about what you need to do to help them listen. […] you have to let someone make and live through their mistake. no one can ever live life without making a few regrettable mistakes and wrongs; otherwise they’ve done nothing at all.
i’ve found it super hard to just watch people make decisions that i feel like are just so obviously wrong, but at the same time, if i explained why to them, this might involve saying something negative about someone else or projecting my own dislikes […] if i kept telling them they were making the wrong decision, this might make them feel more conflicted and hurt, because they couldn’t even come to me to ask abt things / rant abt small things — the goal is to be the voice of care and not the voice of judgement.
at the same time, i find that i like being able to talk abt problems in my life with people who won’t just criticize the basis of the issue — i.e. when asking abt a problem in a friendship, not telling me i should “just not be friends”, or “just say no” […] there’s always more complexity to that and if the person i’m talking to can’t grasp it, i find it hard to come to them for advice or help.
over-advising breaks the implicit contract of trust.
5. give advice respectfully
what does respectfully mean? similar to my previous point, part of it is respecting the other person’s ability to grow and learn. when you assume they have less “depth of thought” / abstraction than you do, you give deeply unhelpful advice.
a great example in these circles is someone complaining about college or school. a common response is “just drop out!” — this is great, lovely, but really truly useless… you’re not meeting them where they are and assuming that it’s merely a “lack of agency” situation. And maybe you might even be right, that they really are just scared of dropping out or making some big move, but that’s part of giving advice: meeting them where they are.
(A slightly related post I wrote but about crushes.)
This is the obvious truth that hits me over the head again and again, that I fear I’m doomed to learn and forget and re-learn in perpetuity: that nearly every person you’ll ever encounter, in love or in passing and anywhere in between, has suffered unfathomable pain; that you will rarely be able to understand or even recognize a fraction of it; that they all keep on living anyway; and that we spend most of our time, all of us, engaged in a grand collective charade to ignore the enormity of our monstrous, communal pain in the interest of continuing to live. — against narrative, rayne fisher-quane
Anyways, I realize this entire post is yet another “advice” column, ironically. You should take this all with a grain of salt and please let me know what you think! Thank you to marie, nina, and john for the amazing conversations & notes. <3