Advice is Rated-R. It happens between consenting adults. Here’s the proof: At some point in our lives, our parents stop commanding us (”Jimmy, clean up your room right now!”) and start advising us (”Jimmy, don’t you think it would be a great idea to clean up your room today?”). The time when commands give way to advice is about the time we start becoming adults. So advice signifies respect—respect for the autonomy of the person receiving the advice.
Advice also signifies caring. We don’t give advice if we don’t care about the person we’re advising, or the project they’re involved with. Parents advise children. Friends advise each other. We might advise a stranger, and it would be an act of altruism—showing that we care, even though we have no relationship.
Faith traditions, both religious and philosophical, usually have a body of collected advice. The more elevated term is wisdom. The Chinese have Confucius. Jews and Christians have the Books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes in the Bible.
What makes good advice good? It’s not just in what is said, but also who says it, and who receives it. What’s the best advice, the greatest wisdom, you ever received? What was it about the content of what was said that made it good? What was it about the person giving the advice? And what was it about you that made the advice so good at that moment?
Always give people the benefit of the doubt (and assume they had good intentions).
Thu 11, 2007 3:36Be humble.
(Still working on it.)
Mon 15, 2007 8:12Dreams do come true, but they more often than not require a little elbow grease.
Mon 15, 2007 10:55You better be happy in this life ‘coz you’ll be a long time dead.
Mon 15, 2007 11:15... Read more Tue 23, 2007 5:06
Although this seems like a pretty negative statement, it’s really given me the freedom to pursue other interests, instead of being tunnel-visioned and focused to the exclusion of everything else.
... Read more Wed 7, 2007 6:07
Choose your battles
Sat 10, 2007 6:04The Public is merely a multiplied “me.”
Fri 4, 2008 1:10