A few days ago, a close friend of mine consulted me with her dilemmas regarding school, parents, and her future in general. She asked questions that I once asked myself when I was her age. Being two years older, I somehow felt like I could offer advice, using my past experience and failures as an incentive for her to do better. She told me her stories, to which I responded with the typical “I did that, too, so you should do this instead.” However, as the conversation deepened, I realized that it wasn’t useful to tell her what I had been through and offer my solution. So, instead, I listened and asked her for her thoughts. Ever since, I’ve been thinking about the role of advice in my life. I have often asked for the opinion of others and many people have responded that “in fact, I’ve been through that and this is what I did.” I believe those words became one less opportunity for me to grow. Giving advice can have negative results; especially advice that is based on the overconfidence in personal experience because it ignores the temporal and situational variables of the individual.

Personal conviction overlooks variables of life.

With the worry of an uncertain future, people tend to hastily settle the doubts of the past and believe that the reason why a current problem is happening is because of an action in the past. However, in determining the past behavior’s effect, we prioritize our personal actions and choices. That a single event is remembered differently from person to person, indicates that the past is understood as a personal interpretation and a single opinion, rather than a fact. We forget the periodical and accidental factors that help determine the outcome instead of giving credit to the individual will and action. If you cannot completely exclude the accidental and time-convenience factors from an experience, then that means that the experience applies only to you in that unique situation. Hence, advice such as, “I have done it before so I know what I’m doing,” or “failure to do what I did will result in” is rather unproductive to both the speaker and the listener.

We are not self-conscious enough to transcend cultural and social systems.

Books of philosophy, humanity, and self-help, are popular as they convey a hope for change while gaining sympathy from its readers. However they are not accountable for their advices. The depth of the topic is irrelevant to its practicability. Likewise, advice from people who did exceptionally well, such as “do what makes you happy,” or “do what you want to do” is unrealistic. The process of finding ‘what’ is often as difficult as actually successfully doing it, especially for the youths who have been living to get into college is like trying to hit a home run without a bat. In fact, those giving this advice had at least an environment and luck to find something that he wanted to do. To ignore that difference and dedicate your success to “doing what I liked” is to falsely idealize your experience. Above all, to ask individuals to transcend their cultural and social conditions, just because you were able to, cannot be a realistic solution.

Your past is everyone else’s past as well.

Everything changes constantly, at an unpredictable rate. Which is why the same act as yesterday, cannot guarantee the same results today. The fact that advice is based on experience basically means that it reflects the past, not the future. Almost everything, such as the amount of information, the way of communication, the way of life, and living values change with each generation. Nevertheless, some older generations who mistakenly imagine very personal and age-dependent experiences as invariable values will forcefully infuse their younger generation the old values they believe in. As a result, we see youths who are still pursuing a career that has been spotlighted decades ago, pursuing the same level of stability as those of elders. It is easy to see how the old valuescreeps into society reducing the flexibility of youth.

Think before offering advice

Does it mean that society without advice is a healthy society? I do not know the answer to that. However, what we should worry about is a society that is ignorant to the changes of time, in which advice works as the hierarchal and irresponsible platform of sharing one’s experience. Simple and immature advice such as “I achieved success by doing this, so you should do it too” or “I failed by doing this so you should never do that” is more destructive than we think. When another’s hasty conclusion is injected into others in the form of assertive assurance, individual values and choices lose their diversity, and unique gains that follow those decisions. For this reason, rather then trying to instill to another the conclusion you have already made, it would be better to share your experience frankly and to sincerely approach their situation without judgement and interpretation. We should also try not to overlook the situational factors that made a certain result possible (or impossible) when talking about our pasts.

You might wonder if you can give advice after considering all these nit picky things, but to intervene in another’s life is a bigger responsibility that you think.