Advice

Heaven help me I wrote some advice today. Always a perilous exercise.

The problem with advice is you are telling someone what to do and it is usually based on how you would handle the situation. While any one of us may have faced the same situation another is facing, none of us can fully understand the context for that person. We all give and are constantly tempted to give advice on any number of occasions. Certainly, when asked it is ok to offer what you know.

As a father, husband, friend, etc. I find my best course of action is to give big disclaimer along the line of " I am not you and have not been through all you have in the past, so in telling you how I would handle this, I am about as useful a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. All apologies to one-legged men, they are inherently more useful than me on this occasion." If that does not dissuade the advice seeker, then try to draw out the response the advice seeker is looking for, "This is a difficult situation, I can't imagine how you would handle. How do you imagine yourself handling it?" Another tack is simply to offer up how you have made mistakes in the past, ala, "I can't say I know how to address this, I only know the one time I faced a similar situation, I handled it poorly." Nothing like an admission of incompetence to thwart the energy of the advice seeker.

So there you go, advice on how not to give advice. Sheesh.