I recently realized how often people get into trouble for giving advice, and I think it is because most (probably all) advice is bad.

People usually seek advice when facing some life decision, or when they find themselves in trouble and need direction on how to proceed. Usually, what happens is the following: person A explains the details of a given situation person B, who, (hopefully) after some contemplation, offers possible directions on how to proceed, alongside the possible outcomes. I contend that reason that the person B hardly ever hears the whole story, and therefore can only give mediocre advice at best

Why is this the case?

1. Honesty is difficult, especially about trouble we are facing. The whole point of getting advice on a troublesome situation is getting out of it, but a good part of getting out of it involves understanding the role we played in getting ourselves into it in the first place, and one of the roles of a counselor is to help us get that understanding. However, telling the full story means acknowledging one’s faults, which ise incredibly difficult to do, given that we are all wired to be biased in our favor.[1]

2. Communicating complexity to another person with much less context than we have is inherently difficult, no matter how honest we are. Most situations that require external counsel for their resolution do so because of their complexity. However, the counselor only has snapshots on a few aspects of this situation and has to frame an entire picture from these. As such, no matter how wise or experienced the counselor is, if there is no clear communication of the problem at hand, especially its subtleties, the counselee will always receive bad advice.

For these reasons, I would suggest that most advice is bad advice. Not in a specifically malevolent sense; only in the sense that it is a good solution to a poorly – posed problem.[2]

Question: Why do people still seek (and offer) advice then, given all this?

The answer: the need for shared responsibility for one’s life.

Responsibility for anything is a very heavy thing to carry, and when the thing in question happens to be one’s life, the weight is compounded. As such, when faced with crossroads in life, even when there is a clear indication of what the next step should be, most people still seek advice. This time however, the need is not so much to secure direction as it is to have another person’s support for the intended course of action.[4] Giving advice therefore ceases to be only a set of opinions on a particular issue, but also an indication of one’s involvement, and a commitment to shared responsibility for the outcome.

So, we have seen two ingredients that make up advice: the content of the advice, and the emotional support that advice gives. We all need both; only to varying degrees. Some people are independent enough to consider options for themselves, and strong enough to assume responsibility for their actions. For those, advice serves its more commonly known purpose: a set of opinions which reveals possibilities and their consequences. Some others do not (yet, hopefully) have the independence or the strength to carry the full burden of responsibility. For them, both components of advice are equally essential.

So, when people give advice they are validating a course of action based on a flawed understanding of what the situation is, and implicitly accepting responsibility for an outcome they have only a faint idea of.

What to do then? The straightforward answers would be

1. to never give any advice whatsoever, or
2. decline from any responsibility for counsel given.

I would probably have considered the possibility of never giving any advice in more detail if it at least sounded good in theory, but unfortunately it doesn’t. There is a reason why people keep giving advice, even with all the risks involved: one of life’s greatest joys is having an opinion which matters, especially when it matters enough to be able to alter the course of another person’s life.

However, when pondering the words of wisdom to spew out on a particular issue, I think it is an important rule of thumb to factor in the person before you, asking for advice. Unless you happen to be Jesus Christ, [5] I don’t think you are willing to die for the entire world. However, there are (or should be) people who are worth getting in trouble for. For those, you could simply give the full extent of your counsel, and prepare for whatever the outcome may be. For the others, you should think carefully about how liable you want to be for what you say, before giving your opinion on the issue.

Notes:

[1] I’ve heard some people say they are totally objective., even with themselves Not only do I think that is false, I think it is scary. I think I will be scared of somebody who is not even a little bit biased in their own favor. If you are not the hero of your own story, who is?

[2] This is the best case scenario. At worst, it is a poor solution to a poorly – posed problem.

[3] Sometimes the counselee has already made up their mind, and just wants somebody backing their premeditated course of action.

[4] For the record, I don’t think you are.

Thanks to: Rowena Cornelius, Tonge Mabel, Mbu Waindim and Augustine Annan for reading drafts of this.