The business of free advice

On my vacation, I realized that generally, people back home in India love giving advice. When they think you are faced with a dilemma, the advice comes thick and fast from all corners genuinely wanting to help you make a decision. Unfortunately, there are three aspects of this advice that make it not only slightly unhelpful, but even annoying at times.

One- the advice is almost always unsolicited.
Second- the advice is given on anything and everything whether the person giving the advice knows anything about the subject.
Third- the advice comes even after you have already taken action and theres nothing you can change.

A couple of incidents shall illustrate the point. My father was suffering from cataract of the eye and I wanted to get him operated on while I was in Jaipur. Now, we wanted to get a really good doctor who could do the operation. We did our research, asked around, narrowed the field to three, my dad and I met with the three doctors, we liked all but liked one in particular and went with the man- Dr. Ashok Puri. He also happened to be the most well renowned eye surgeon in Jaipur and we finalized everything. Within a couple of days, the operation was done and Dad was back at home, feeling wonderful with new eyes.

As people came in to see my dad, the advice started, first about the doctor and then about the recuperative procedure. About the doctor, we were told that he's way too expensive, he does not give enough time to patients and there are others who are better. When asked who these better ones were and who had got their operation done there, they would refer to some remote uncle of theirs who had got some eye operation(not even cataract) and was telling them he was good. I was amazed that this third party advice was being given so authoritatively. Secondly, the operation had already been done. There was no way to reverse it. Thirdly, my dad was feeling absolutely fine both with the doctor and his eye and so it didn't quite matter apart from just unsettling him a little bit about whether we had made the right decision in the first place. And then there was plenty of advice regarding how he should handle the eyes once the operation has been done. This was way above what the doctor had told us to do. I was grateful that people came to look up my dad but wasn't so grateful for the free advice that was being dished out.

Similarly, one of my cousins was seeking admission in a college in Delhi and she was again inundated with a plethora of advice- about colleges, about courses, about prospects of studying in Delhi versus Jaipur. As I looked at the people dishing out advice, I was amazed as few of them had either studied in Delhi or had background similar to the one my cousin had. But the conviction of their stand was to be seen to be believed.

These two incidents made me think. Why are we so keen to give advice plus what makes us so confident about giving it in the first place? Keenness could be attributed to a genuine desire to help. I am not sure about the conviction of advice. A false assertion could lead to a loss of credibility and so common sense demands that advice should be given sparingly and only on subjects that one is reasonably sure on. Apparently, that really doesn't matter. Much as I like the fact that people are out to help, it is also quite obvious to me that they eventually do more harm than good. So whats the best way out. Listen, be polite, but do what you think best, otherwise you could be paralyzed into inaction given all the advice you receive. This way, you will keep your relationships intact and also sleep well at night!