This Is What Your Unsolicited Advice Sounds Like

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/this-is-what-your-unsolicited-advice-sounds-like

by bmcn2020 • 6 years ago

69 65 6 years ago

The drowning person really hit home for me. This is what most blog posts on startup world sound like trying to teach you something...

yummypaint• 6 years ago

Paywalled (?)

Fiveplus• 6 years ago

It's a series of images and I'm choosing not to rehost them. Here's [1] the direct links, hopefully it opens for you.

[1] https://media.newyorker.com/photos/5f406669322964f142b45249/...

[2] https://media.newyorker.com/photos/5f4066699a557880d973bc91/...

[3] https://media.newyorker.com/photos/5f406667d1dbd65a6a995d23/...

[4] https://media.newyorker.com/photos/5f406667dcb11d2009b4d0f1/...

[5] https://media.newyorker.com/photos/5f406667165d4d7af1f9bd6f/...

andai• 6 years ago

To clarify, the article contains only the images and nothing else -- not even captions.

hprotagonist• 6 years ago

an old and true complaint.

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?

4ad• 6 years ago

No, this is what bad advice looks like, solicited or not.

Good advice is rare, and in my experience unsolicited advice is neither higher nor lower quality than solicited advice. This is of course anecdotal.

roflc0ptic9• 6 years ago

There’s this concept called “catastrophizing”, where basically you take whatever situation you’re in and project it out to worst case, and then feel anxious because there’s a looming catastrophe. E.g. you and your partner have a disagreement about housework. This then gets projected to worst case - they’ll never carry their weight/stop trying to micromanage my behavior, ergo I don’t know if this relationship can work.

This comic seems aimed at tone-deaf people trying to get others to stop catastrophizing, and there’s a whole lot to be said for validating others’ experience (life is inescapably and terribly painful) and not trying to cram zen shit down people’s throats when they’re suffering. It’s not helpful.

In addition to that, unless you’re literally falling off a cliff, falling off of a cliff is a disempowering metaphor - it’s straight catastrophizing. If you’re literally and inescapably about to get hit by a semi truck, well. Why shouldn’t you focus on what you can control? Why not think warm thoughts about the people you love before you die?

Our brains generate lots of crazy, irrational things when we’re in pain. That’s inescapable - we don’t really control our thoughts. We do get to reality test them and choose whether or not to believe those thoughts, though.

free_rms• 6 years ago

There's people out there with a lot of economic insecurity plus kids with no school right now, it's not 'catastrophizing' for them to feel like they're drowning.

lhuser123• 6 years ago

Exactly. Sometimes the catastrophe is real. And is difficult for outsiders to understand the magnitude of it.

katzgrau• 6 years ago

That's really what Stoicism is all about - control what you can, accept what you cannot. That doesn't mean that you will be immune from suffering, but it frames our problem in a rational way and sometimes makes them more tolerable.

People have been thinking about approaches to the same everyday problems for thousands of years.

OJFord• 6 years ago

This comic seems aimed at tone-deaf people trying to get others to stop catastrophizing

Funny, my read was that the author is on the side of the catastrophisor, 'this is what your unsolicited advice looks like - you don't understand what a catastrophe the recipients in'.

Nobody ever gets a chance to give advice to someone falling off a cliff or getting hit by a truck. Isn't it the comic itself (at least) that's doing the catastrophising?

roflc0ptic9• 6 years ago

Totally agree. The comic is straight catastrophizing.

dplgk• 6 years ago

Thanks for this explanation. I have a tendency to do this and I'm not sure if it's from being a programmer, where predicting a cascading effect from a single decision is very useful... Or if I'm a good programmer because I already had this tendency. It's not great for relationships.

Hnrobert423• 6 years ago

I also tend to jump straight into solution mode. I found it useful to study and practice mirroring. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirroring

TeMPOraL5• 6 years ago

A similar "programmer tendency" I struggle with that's also not great for relationships is inventing counterexamples. It's a very powerful tool of reasoning - for a candidate solution/idea, you quickly come up with some corner cases and use them to fix the idea or abort it and search for a better one. But in relationships, it leads to exchanges like:

- Her: You know, maybe let's start doing X to improve Y?

- Me: Yeah, that's a good idea! But let's also talk about handling Z because without it, X will lead to less Y.

- Her: [confused] Why do you hate my ideas?

- Me: [confused] What? I just said I think the idea is great, it just needs a bit more consideration.

And then she's sad, and I'm confused, and X never happens. Despite trying to phrase my counterexamples in a very constructive way (instead of how we do it in industry: "but Z!"), they're being perceived as a rejection.

After couple of such I've finally learned to keep track of the corner cases in my head, accept the idea without the mentioning it, and only then, over time, bring up the counterexamples so that it's clear these are new problems to be solved, and not a rejection.

maxerickson2• 6 years ago

It's generally just not necessary to give people unsolicited advice.

Even more so to people that you don't know well.

You are overthinking the metaphors in the comic. They are just there to emphasize that the advice isn't doing the person receiving it any good (or is your premise that the person about to get hit by the semi will suddenly act differently having been encouraged to focus on the things they can control?).

Hnrobert423• 6 years ago

I agree with your points.

At the same time, I sm tickled by the irony of you giving unsolicited advice about not giving unsolicited. :-)

roflc0ptic9• 6 years ago

My position is that giving bad advice is bad, giving unsolicited advice is usually bad, and that "there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so", which is to say that - when something painful happens, we suffer doubly by assigning a bunch of meaning to it and worrying about it.

Even though telling an individual who is catastrophizing to stop catastrophizing usually won't help them stop (and will often damage relationships), it is nevertheless the case that they'll be better off if they stop catastrophizing.

I took the time to write this here because it struck me that the people who would identify with this comic might benefit from the concept, and in a small way, hope that they can apply it to their lives to suffer a little bit less.

Better than giving unsolicited advice is gently sharing mental models that you think might serve a person better, and letting them make the choice to adopt them (or not).

techbio• 6 years ago

Catastrophizing, meet your neighbor Ridiculizing.

Dumblydorr• 6 years ago

It's not zen to cram shitty aphorisms down someone's ears when they aren't even asking. Zen is about sitting, focusing on the current moment, and using simple stories and imagery from zen tradition to improve your mind. Zen is not foisting your egotistically driven ideas onto others who aren't receptive.

roflc0ptic9• 6 years ago

Fair. I should have put "zen" in quotes. I'm involved with a Plum Village inspired sangha, and have experienced my share of well intentioned, unhelpful and unsolicited advice from buddhists (who are genuinely lovely people).

guerrilla3• 6 years ago

I think you missed the point and as a consequence this comment is exactly the kind of advice the comics apply to. We need another panel with someone being stabbed repeatedly and a person advising them to "just stop catastrophizing" The point is that the situation is out of the person's control and is catastrophic. This is an assumption of the setup. This is distinct from the experience of the situation which is painful. Denial that the situation is out of the person's control and is not catastrophic is just handwaving it away, which is unsurprisingly not helpful.

unless you’re literally falling off a cliff [...] it’s straight catastrophizing.

This is nonsense. There are plenty of examples of things that are horrible to experience and outside of the person's control and for them this kind of advice is absurd. For example, depression and mental illness. This goes for many kinds of physical illnesses as well. I suspect that may be where the author is coming from too. The implication of the comics is that the grave situation is actually real and actually uncontrollable which the sufferer actually knows as a fact.

Why shouldn’t you focus on what you can control? Why not think warm thoughts about the people you love before you die?

The question is not whether they should but whether they can. There's no indication in the comics that the situations are not literally uncontrollable, only that the adviser is unaware of this fact.

roflc0ptic9• 6 years ago

There are plenty of examples of things that are horrible to experience and outside of the person's control and for them this kind of advice is absurd

Let's say e.g. someone's father gets dementia, and they've got to take care of them. They talk about how painful it is, and you feel like you've been thrown off of a cliff. Seeing that they're in a lot of pain, I try to help by saying "Look, you just need to focus on the things that you can control. Using metaphors like that is disempowering."

We both agree that this would be a terrible way to help. Watching someone you love die of dementia is a horrible experience. If someone is expressing dismay at the prospect of watching a loved one uncontrollably disintegrate, the only good responses are in the vein of "wow, that sounds incredibly painful. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help."

Nevertheless! The person whose father is dying has a choice about where they put their attention. Do they spend time thinking about how unfair it is for him to work his whole life and lose his mind the moment he's poised to retire? How unfair it is that they have to take care of this person, who never took care of them when they were younger? Or instead, do they focus on the things that they can influence?

I'm not saying it's easy to do - personally I find it incredibly difficult. But making the effort to calmly accept things as they are without labeling things as catastrophes has been and continues to be incredibly freeing.

codemonkey-zeta5• 6 years ago

I dislike this attitude. The idea is to convince people that unsolicited (mental health) advice is pointless and the behavior change the author would like to see is for people to stop giving these clichéd wisdoms.

But that's not a universal position. Personally I've benefited immensely from exactly this kind of unsolicited advice, especially at a younger age, and it really did help me.

What this kind of work suggests is an attitude of, "My problems are so [explitive] huge that you can't possibly understand so don't even bother trying to help me". Well maybe you are the unlucky bastard with 6-sigma problems, but more than likely you're actually an average person with average problems, and should be grateful for the average words of encouragement (because that's really what these clichés are, they don't actually care if you take up yoga, they just want you to know that they're encouraging you) from your average friends and family.

_wldu• 6 years ago

While I agree with you, I also know that sometimes, people just want to talk and they just want you to listen to them. They don't want your advice and they don't want you to 'fix' their problems. Just listen to them.

ianai• 6 years ago

More than that, sometimes looking for a fix becomes the act of perpetuating a problem. If can act as a stop point away from searching for deeper understanding of the problem and thus proper response.

But that’s probably just for simpler or longer term problems than falling off a cliff or an oncoming train.

There’s a lot of suffering in the world - especially right now. The universe itself can be especially cruel, for that matter. So personally I try to be kind and generous when I can.

TeMPOraL5• 6 years ago

Understanding this point has significantly improved my relationship with my wife, but honestly - I cannot comprehend the mindset. It feels like a fundamental difference in world processing.

For me, the quickest and surest way to reduce anxiety about some problem is to find candidate solutions. I don't even have to act on them, just knowing that there's a possible path out is enough for me to stop worrying (and sometimes do nothing, and then the problem solves itself, because it was never that big in the first place). But then it seems that a good chunk of the population just wants to have their anxiety validated (and their "catastrophizing", per the other comment in the thread). Which I guess would be fine, if it made their anxiety go away. But it doesn't.

bmcn20202• 6 years ago

I read somewhere -- it's probably a huge oversimplification -- but that when men talk about their problems, they want to solve those problems. when women talk about their problems, they just want to discuss the problems, or their significance.

This has helped me out a lot with my wife, and it's something i try to be mindful of whenever i talk to ANYONE now -- men or women. This idea was helpful because it raised in me the question: is the person talking to you for you to help solve their problems, or for you to just listen and help them get it off their chest?

Although i'm still in the problem-solving mindset, looking at it in this light helps me to at least think of the person's needs, instead of my own desires.

TeMPOraL5• 6 years ago

As a kid and teenager, I used to vehemently hate clichés and "folk wisdom" delivered to me by family and friends. It took me until adulthood to finally accept them and understand them for what they are. And what they are is tried and true heuristics, that apply more often than not to situations in which they're invoked.

The problem with those is that they're just pointers, handles to a set of complex reasoning and personal experiences - so you're unlikely to grok a given piece of folk wisdom unless you thought about it and already navigated a situation in which it would apply. So for a teenager or young adult, they sound trite. But for someone with a couple decades of life behind them, they're concise.

Now that applies to the kind of clichés you'd find in a dictionary. The kind you see in this article/comic strip? These are just pseudo-zen bullshit peddled by self-help industry scammers. They pretend to be actionable, but are completely empty. I wish people would stop with those - not on the grounds that unsolicited advice is somehow bad, but on the grounds that these particular pieces of advice are objectively useful only to sell books and training courses.

codemonkey-zeta5• 6 years ago

I completely agree with you, except I don't think all the advice in the comic fits that description. I think yoga in particular is an extremely powerful mental (and physical!) exercise.

II2II• 6 years ago

I dislike this attitude. The idea is to convince people that unsolicited (mental health) advice is pointless and the behavior change the author would like to see is for people to stop giving these clichéd wisdoms.

We don't know the author's actual motivations. They may be suggesting that you should think about how your message will be received before delivering it, ask before offering it, wait until it is asked for, consider how you say it, think about whether it is necessary to deliver, or to not offer it at all.

As for mental health advice, that's something altogether different. Unless you are extremely sensitive and have a solid understanding of human psychology (i.e. not this is what worked for me) and understand that person's background, offering advice is a risky proposition. Also note that giving advice is different from offering support.

codemonkey-zeta5• 6 years ago

Yes, more than likely you're right. This was not my first interpretation of the comic, and it rubbed me entirely the wrong way. Your interpretation has wise advice, and I will keep it in mind.

Rilfeu8• 6 years ago

Do you have any example of the advice they gave you that you "benefited immensely from?". Because I got this kind of advice a million times and it only made me feel worse.

Also, when this kind of advice came from my family, they were trying to minimize my problems (so they wouldn't have to do anything to seriously help), not help me.

searchableguy• 6 years ago

People should avoid giving advice to others suffering from mental health issues. It's reasonable to point that out and refer to a professional. That said,

Be more than words. If I am telling someone to seek professional advice, I would help them with the task in a meaningful way such as contributing financially, finding information for them, being their speaker or support for coming out to others. Ask them what they would need help with instead of guessing or provide options when they can't come up with something.

If you are close or live nearby, you can help with chores and food. Good food helps and it's easy to end up eating garbage when you are down.

dougmwne2• 6 years ago

Yes. A coworker once told me I talk too fast on the phone. After getting angry for a moment that someone would think they can tell me how to speak, I realized they were right and that other people were having trouble hearing me and following what I was saying. I worked on it, and now people compliment me on my phone skills. For the past 5 years I've worked from home and am on hours of calls a day. Immense benefit, and I will always be grateful they said something.

codemonkey-zeta5• 6 years ago

Yoga was the one that resonated with me. The best piece of advice I ever got (though not explicitly criticised here, but along the same vein) was to take deep breaths to control my emotions. Most of the time my mental health problems were not physical, but stemmed from my own emotions, so these exercises were very effective. Unsolicited mental health advice drove a lot of my mental and emotional development as a child. Maybe I'm an anomaly, but I suspect others shared my experience.

roflc0ptic9• 6 years ago

One really interesting aspect of empathy is that it seems to have evolved as a pain avoidance tool - you see someone else burn their hand, see them react by saying "Ouch!", and you feel a shadow of the pain they're in, and don't make the same mistake. When we feel too much empathy for people - e.g. someone we're close to is in pain - often people give advice that is selfish - you're in pain, and it's hurting me, so while I want to help, what I'm really doing is trying to minimize my own suffering by (often inadvertently) minimizing yours. Helping other people is hard, both because we often don't know what to do, and because even our best intentions can get distorted by our ape brains.

And to be clear, the advice in the comic is bad advice when it's given in those contexts. For good advice that's shaped kind of the same way, I'd suggest reading "Peace is Every Step" by Thich Naht Hanh - lmk and I can send you a copy (It's on libgen). Alternatively, reading the stoics (as someone else suggested in this thread) would be a good place to start.

roflc0ptic9• 6 years ago

What this kind of work suggests is an attitude of, "My problems are so [explitive] huge that you can't possibly understand so don't even bother trying to help me".

I had a similar reaction to these comics, though I think you captured my objection better.

Personally I've benefited immensely from exactly this kind of unsolicited advice, especially at a younger age, and it really did help me

I suspect that this might be a factor of how apt the advice is to the exact moment, and how skillfully it is delivered.

bluntfang2• 6 years ago

man this is a bad...comic? It seems like the author has gone through a lot, but I bet they haven't been in any of the life threatening situations they portray, and I think equating mental health crises to imminent doom is doing a disservice.

Rilfeu8• 6 years ago

Do you know that a person can commit suicide due to mental health[1]? That sounds pretty serious if you ask me.

I do understand what you're trying to say. But sometimes the threat is imminent but you cannot see it, and many people will not talk openly about this to others. Somebody being dismissive of your problems can be exactly like person pushing you off a cliff.

[1] https://www.hhs.gov/answers/mental-health-and-substance-abus...

bluntfang2• 6 years ago

Do you know that a person can commit suicide due to mental health[1]? That sounds pretty serious if you ask me.

I do, thanks for reminding me! I guess this comic is a portraying someone who has attempted suicide or is crying for help via suicide then? It would be nice to have that clarification.

I think it's disingenuous to equate death with people who aren't facing a life or death situation, like suicide.

waihtis• 6 years ago

There seems to be some new culture where it’s OK or even celebrated to answer to good intentions with snarky hostility.

If the advice isn’t to your liking, let it slide right off you. It will not make you feel better if you berate someone who’s ultimately trying to help you.

jowsie• 6 years ago

In my experience the person giving the unwanted, heard a million times before advice isn't doing it because they actually want to help. They just want to feel good about themselves.

username90• 6 years ago

How do you know, is that why you give advice? I think people really want to help so they give the advice they know. However since most humans are pretty simple and similar the advice they give will usually be the same advice everyone else gives.

Rilfeu8• 6 years ago

It is not the point of this. The point of this comic is to try to make people who never had mental health issues understand how it feels from our point of view when you give your clueless and tone deaf advice.

Would you not be at least a bit annoyed if somebody told you to "just think positively" when you are drowning? To you it might sound ridiculous to make this analogy, as you don't see a person literally drowning when you see a depressed person. But to us it can feel exactly like this.

6510• 6 years ago

In the first image the woman was burned for murdering yoga practitioners.

In the second image the guy pushed his wife in front of a truck for endlessly micromanaging him.

In the 3rd image the guy had enough of her negativity and pushed her off the cliff.

In the 4th image the couple agreed to cash in on the life insurance.

In the 5th image the woman is years to late with her unsolicited advice but she finally speaks her mind.

dougmwne2• 6 years ago

I feel like the advice (ahem) to not give unsolicited advice is mostly relevant to the workplace. That's the situation when often the most savvy move is to disengage from a person who doesn't "get it" and look to how you can protect yourself. Selfishly speaking, giving advice at work can go bad for you several ways. Maybe they hear your advice, but now you're getting involved and taking responsibility for a sinking situation that might not be your problem to deal with. Maybe they bristle at being told what to do and you damage the relationship without actually helping. Maybe there is a personal component to the situation (one that you, a coworker will never get to learn about) and your advice will come off as incredibly tone deaf and clueless. Maybe it's in your interest to let your competition fail so you look all the better. And for the record, while I think this is a common attitude, I will always be grateful for advice at work and will put myself at political risk if I think I can really help another person. Life is too short to treat others like shit.

In the personal world where we love our family and our friends, you're damn right I'm going to give advice. And if we have to get angry at each other, talk past each other until we come to a better understanding of each others point of views, well that's the mess and the beauty of real human connection.

I'll end with an example. Someone in my boss's professional circle once had breath that smelled like poop. Everyone talked about this person behind their back, made litte gagging noises and mean jokes. No one ever said anything, because it's safest not to get involved. My boss got the guy's home address and wrote an anonymous letter. Said, very nicely, that people can notice and while maybe this person was already aware or had tried everything, a doctor's appointment could be in order to talk over options or diet changes if they hadn't already. And you know what? From then onwards, that person had good breath.

This is a cold and terrible world if we don't take care of each other.

DoreenMichele• 6 years ago

See, I can absolutely see myself in that first image as the person saying you should try yoga -- because that's exactly how I slipped the ropes tying me to the burning stake and didn't burn to death.

But there's no getting people to see that because they will see it when they believe it and their position is they will believe it when they see it. "The key is in the safe."

bmcn20202• 6 years ago

I think one thing that people may have missed here -- at least for the first four images -- the advice-givers are in a position to help the sufferers, but they aren't actually helping. they're just giving platitudes, vague, modern, empty advice that can apply to anyone at any time, regardless of their situations.

But in these particular situations, the sufferers need actual, physical help, not just bland words.

This Is What Your Unsolicited Advice Sounds Like

Related Stories