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Living for a little over four decades does not automatically qualify me to give life advice to anyone. If anything, it qualifies me to admit that I am still figuring things out. So perhaps we should leave the life advice to the so-called life coaches and NO, I do not approve of their profession or the work that they do.
You know the ones…people who have apparently decoded the mysteries of existence and are now generously willing to explain life to the rest of us, usually for a fee, because nothing says “I have found inner peace” quite like a UPI payment code ready to be scanned. Somewhere as a society, we decided that advice becomes more valuable when money changes hands. Apparently, if I give you advice for free, it’s just an opinion. If I charge you ₹4,999 for it, suddenly it’s a transformational life experience.
Time is money, after all and apparently, so is gyaan.
Personally, I am still perfectly capable of receiving advice. If someone has something worthwhile to share, I’ll listen, now whether I use it or not is another matter entirely – that is the beauty of advice I guess.
But here’s what I’ve realised, behind most advice, there is usually a story – A personal story. You aren’t merely telling someone, “Don’t trust people too easily.”, you’re probably unconsciously saying, “I trusted someone once, and look where that got me.”. You aren’t simply saying, “Never ignore the red flags.”, there’s probably a whole parade of red flags somewhere in your past. Now when someone says, “Don’t marry for the wrong reasons,” I’m immediately wondering what happened at that wedding.
People rarely just give advice, they package their experiences into little life lessons.
Sometimes, though, people don’t really want to narrate their life story, lets get real here: “Let me tell you about the worst relationship of my life” sounds like the beginning of a two-hour conversation we never asked to be part of. Now disguise that same story as advice, and it turns out as:
“Young man, never trust someone who suddenly starts hiding their phone.”
Now we have a plot. Add betrayal, drama, sex, infidelity, a suspicious WhatsApp notification and possibly a mother-in-law, and suddenly I’m no longer receiving advice, I am watching an Ekta Kapoor special inside my head. That’s the clever thing about advice. It allows us to reveal our past without admitting we’re revealing our past.
We don’t say, “This happened to me.”, we turn it around and say, “I’m telling you this for your own good.”. Yes, of course you are.
So perhaps my advice to those younger than me is actually this:
Keep your advice to yourself… unless someone asks for it.
We already have enough going on n in our lives and we don’t necessarily need someone standing beside us saying, “You know what your problem is?” We already know. We stumble, screw up and recover.
Don’t fall for that ₹9,999 three-day masterclass called “Unlock the Best Version of Yourself.” you don’t need to unlock anything.
So if you’re coming to me to dish out some advice but have your own personal life story behind it… I’d much rather have the un-edited version, please. If you are going to waste my time, at least make it interesting. I’m not even charging you for my time.
