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Tag: advice

Advisory

Advisory

Published November 19, 2021

So here’s an age old conundrum. Say someone you know well is doing something wrong. Maybe the best friend is making a mistake, with his wasting habits. Maybe it’s the son who isn’t being respectful of his old parents. Maybe it is a newly wed bride who isn’t doing her duties well enough. Maybe its a new mom who isn’t caring for her baby as much. Or maybe a husband is not treating his wife well enough. The permutations and combinations are many, but the question is the same.

“As someone who is seeing these wrongdoings happen, is it not my duty to go and correct them? Or at least tell them what to do?”

While we are caught up in that moment, it might certainly seem like we should do something. But little good comes from poking our noses in anything unsolicited.

Picture this. No one asked for your advice. Yet you went ahead and gave it. The other person didn’t like it, and asked you not to meddle. Or the other person liked it, but didn’t give you any credit. In any case, no one beyond a certain age (say 15) likes ‘to be told’ anything. So your advice, even if the best solution for their problem, results only in friction.

And as the giver of advice, we may think we are being detached by not worrying about whether the other person accepts it or not, acts on it or not. But if that is the case, then we should truly never think of or speak of whether the advice was implemented or not. Are we strong enough for that?

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The other side

The other side

Published June 14, 2020

In the book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey tells the story of man who enters a subway train with his 2 young kids. The 2 little scoundrels were creating such a racket, but the father had just shut his eyes, seemingly oblivious to the discomfort being caused to other passengers. “What poor parenting”, is the first thought that comes to mind. The author soon realises that the man had just lost his wife to a deadly disease and that they were returning home from the hospital. What an immediate transformation in perspective!

A math teacher gave a child two chocolates and asked how many she had. The child replied “three”. The teacher was angry, only to realise later the child already had 1 chocolate in her pocket!

A supremely successful businessman I know, today seems to have life all nice and dandy. But I learned recently that his mother passed away when he was very young. A few days later, his dad passed away as well, grief struck at the loss of his best friend.

But we rarely know the ‘other’ side, isn’t it?

Dale Carnegie in his iconic bestseller How to Win Friends and Influence People, says that the best (and perhaps only) way to get people to like you, is to take a genuine interest in people and to listen to them with rapt attention.

What golden and eye-opening advice! We do not need an expensive degree or a big title or a lot of money. On the contrary, following these principles, will automatically bring all of these and more.

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