Against Advice
Most of the time, listening is enough
I have received more advice over the last six months, both solicited and un-, than I’ve ever heard before in my life. I was facing a major life decision — I hesitate to tell you what the specific decision concerned, because if I do, you, too, will immediately form your own strong and worthless opinions about it. Suffice it to say it was one of those deeply personal decisions about which, paradoxically, everyone feels entitled to give you advice: people who’d consider it tacky to tell you your shoes don’t match your suit won’t hesitate to weigh in on the most primal and intimate questions. (My female friends who’ve had children tell me that when they became mothers — as soon as they were visibly pregnant — family, friends, and strangers alike all felt free to second-guess and correct their parenting.) Friends of friends I’d just met, people whose judgment I valued not at all, spontaneously offered their two cents’ worth; total strangers succumbed to the delusion that what they thought mattered. What pushed me over the patience threshold into something more like rage was when the advisor implied that, despite what I might think, I didn’t actually know what I wanted. This is like telling adolescents it’s just a phase, you’ll grow out of it; no one at any age wants to hear that they don’t know who they are. On more than one occasion I had to give people…
