Unsolicited advisers
Unsolicited advisers
People who like to give advice left and right are quite common. And, unfortunately, they are often representatives of our sex. Accordingly, they mainly bombard women with advice. At the same time, most advisers, if you look closely, have not achieved anything in life themselves, which, however, they try to carefully hide. And they raise their self-esteem, their ego at the expense of others.
The problem with “advice incontinence” has been known since ancient times, “Everyone gives advice easily, but few take responsibility for it.” (Publius Cornelius Tacitus, ancient historian and writer). Since then, nothing has changed: “A person who is smart enough to give good advice is usually smart enough not to give advice.” (Eden Philpotts, English writer, poet and playwright).
It would be fine if this advice was empty chatter that can easily be ignored. But this chatter is far from as harmless, as it may seem.
To give a real case: at a class reunion many years after finishing school, everyone began to ask how everyone else’s life had turned out. And one of the former students (at the time of the reunion, a famous Russian writer) heard from her classmates, “What, you never got married? They won’t take you? And why did not you have a child? You should have had one for yourself!”
No, these ladies were never her friends and she did not complain to them about her supposedly “lonely lot” (her life was filled with creativity and interesting events). However, they not only imagined themselves entitled to give unsolicited advice to a grown, successful woman, which could hurt and insult her but also practically reproached her for not committing adultery and not producing an illegitimate child. Sometimes such advice can be dangerous. Here is another case. A woman living in a village by the sea received a call from a friend in a distant city asking if there was a seaside tourist centre there where she could go on vacation. Feeling something unusual in the situation, the seaside friend asked what had happened. It turned out that the city dweller, a well-off woman with a husband and two teenage children, found out that she was pregnant. She was already quite pregnant when her circle of friends, relatives, and colleagues found out about it. And they began to bombard the woman with advice... to have an abortion. “Why do you need a third?” she heard from all sides. “You have a stable life, your own interests, you need to get your older children on their feet, why do you need a third?! Get rid of it! Otherwise, your whole life will go awry, you will be tired, there will be no work, no communication (and similar “horrors”)...” The advisers got on the woman’s nerves so much that she decided to move far away so as not to hear them. Her seaside friend, having clarified whether her interlocutor had the health for bearing a child (the answer was yes) and how her family was doing (they had a house, earned well and the husband wanted this child), congratulated her city-dwelling friend on the joyful event: a child is a gift from the Almighty and happiness for parents, and there is no point in listening to fools. Inspired by her friend’s support, the woman did not go anywhere and after a certain period of time gave birth to a girl. The daughter really became a joy for her mother; when she grew up, she showed talent in creativity and sports.
What do we see in this case? The advisers were strongly pushing the woman to get rid of the desired, albeit unexpected, child from her beloved husband. This is no longer just an attempt to get into someone else’s monastery with one’s own charter but something more serious. What motivated these people? Good intentions? Unlikely. Did they want the best? Not at all.
Such people, in the terms of psychologists, with their unnecessary advice try to take on the role of “parents”, and put a person in the position of a “child” who is not able to make life decisions on his own. For what? Again, to assert him or herself at someone else’s expense.
What can we do to prevent such ill-mannered and tactless people, who imagine that we are dumber than them, from interfering in our lives?
First of all, it is worth asking ourselves whether we need such characters around us. If for some reason such people still appear in close proximity to us and readily uncork a bag of unnecessary advice, we should think of answers after which these people will completely lose the desire to poke their noses into other people’s business. The answers should not be rude, but definitive; you can even provide them with a bit of humor.
Let us give examples:
“And do you follow your own advice?”
“Do you really mean it? How smart you are! How I lived before without your advice, I cannot even imagine. I probably would have completely disappeared - I do not have the brains to figure out how to live my life, right?”
“Oh, that’s right! It is immediately obvious that you are so experienced. Start a blog and start teaching everyone how to act in any situation.”
“I do not remember asking you for advice.”
“Really?! Yes, yes, you are right, I will not argue. You are the most professional in such matters.”
“And for what purpose are you telling me this?”
(Contrary to expectations, many advisers will not eagerly admit how worried they are about you and in confusion will not immediately find an answer. If they answer, “I want to help,” we ask the next question, “Did I ask for help?”)
“I know perfectly well how to act in life. If I need advice, I may turn to you, but this is unlikely.”
We wish everyone understanding, smart and well-mannered people around us!
