I was chastised today for not listening to my friend as she
ranted about her usual love life. Now, this is a newer friend to me, so maybe I
should have actually been attempting to pay attention, but I had a lot of
grants to apply for and very limited time to do it. As I sat there on my laptop
typing yet again what the mission of the program I’m requesting funds for, she
scolds me “Amanda! You’re not even paying attention to me!” I look up, dazed
and confused as to what she was referring to, I then realize that she had been
talking to me and wanted me to give her advice. Now, I really don’t like to
give advice, and I’m not sure that I’m even good at it. So I asked her why she
wanted advice from me? She looked at me
and said something along the lines of I was the only one around to help her. At
this my mind went spinning.
Do
people generally ask advice of those near them? Or is there a certain comfort
level that a person has to have with another person in order to tell them their
problems. I guess in my case I tend to be a good listener, although today was
not the optimal example of this, I usually put all my effort into what someone
else is saying. The thing I often wonder about though is whether I should.
Should I really give advice that may or may not work out for this person? I can’t
predict the future, and if I could I’d definitely not be giving advice because
I wouldn’t want people to find out. Why do I seem to get asked advice a lot. To
be quite honest I’d prefer if people would rant to me, that way they could lay
out all their feelings and problems, but wouldn’t honestly expect me to help
solve them.
I often
struggle when other asks me for my advice, I’m not particularly worldly, and
what type of decent advice could I truly offer? I guess though, that at the end
of the day I tend to let others know and tell them what I would do in a situation.
Maybe help them reword a text or email, but in the end, I tend to abstain from
truly giving a direct this is what you should do. I say more, well I would do
this, but that’s only if the situation were like this. So far, that’s worked
out moderately well for me. Although, I’d love to abstain from listening when I
have a lot of things to do if I were to be completely honest.
I always feel the ned to give advice and I try hard to make it fair to both sides, but I will tell you this. It is frustrating to give advice because more often than not they will no use it unless it is what they wanted to do anyway. Then they will come to you again about the same problem and ask for the same advice and not use it again and it becomes an ugly circle. You are probably right leaving it the way you do it....
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