I\u2019m a compulsive giver of advice. Despite my demonstrable lack of ability to run my own life like a person, I appear to believe that I could do well running yours. Now and then my friends have to basically say, \u201cThat\u2019s great and all, stop helping<\/em>.\u201d I have the stereotypical guy thing where the wife just wants to be heard and commiserated with, and the husband insists on trying to solve<\/em> the problem.<\/p>\n Because of this, which I\u2019m trying to present cutely but which can really become a character defect when I don\u2019t rein myself in, I spend a lot of time thinking about how good advice goes bad<\/a>. This is advice where the giver is already trying to do all the basic work of listening and responding humbly rather than projecting one\u2019s own needs, beliefs, or experiences. One of the most common problems is that two people can hear the same advice in opposite ways\u2013and both of those ways can be \u201cright,\u201d really, both getting at an important theological or moral truth.<\/p>\n So for example, you\u2019re having a problem. Let\u2019s say it\u2019s compulsive stealing of elephants, because what it actually is doesn\u2019t matter, and let\u2019s say you get advice from two different Christian friends. One of them suggests a list of things you can try, like changing your route home from work so you don\u2019t pass the zoo, or praying each morning to St. Wilberforce Tusked-to-Death, the patron saint of respecting our elephantine friends. The other one emphasizes God\u2019s mercy and total forgiveness of your elephant theft, and reminds you that we only act well through God\u2019s grace, not through strenuous rule-following or beating ourselves up about stuff.<\/p>\n People who know me know that I tend way too far toward the first approach, but that\u2019s not important right now. The thing is, both of your friends are right, but both kinds of advice can be taken the wrong way really badly. The first kind of advice can come across as\u2013or be taken as, since this is an interaction of speaker and listener in which both<\/em> play an active role\u2013scolding. It\u2019s a list of tasks; nobody likes to confess a sin that\u2019s making him miserable and get homework in return. It can also come across as viewing the moral life as a problem of technique: Just do these things and you will conquer sin. Personally, by yourself. This is an unbearable burden. It places us in the role of Jesus, as if we are healed by our own stripes and not by His.<\/p>\n On the other hand, this is one kind of advice I personally have needed many times, and received many times. Sometimes small technical changes really help. There\u2019s an acronym in AA (because isn\u2019t there always), HALT\u2013Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired. It basically means, When you feel like you would kill for a drink, ask yourself if you\u2019re any of these four things. If you are, address your hunger\/anger\/loneliness\/exhaustion first. Once you\u2019ve eaten and rested and called a friend, etc, ask yourself if you still want a drink that badly. Paying attention to the needs of the body, changing your morning routine, taking up specific prayer practices designed to meet your specific needs, keeping a *~*journal*~* like the melodramatic teenager we all are at heart\u2013all of that is stuff I\u2019ve started to do and it\u2019s helped immensely. If nobody told me about those things I would be a lot worse off than I am now. I mean, you laugh at, \u201cYou should pray in the bathroom<\/a>\u201c, but there\u2019s a reason people say it.<\/p>\n Meanwhile the other kind of advice can be incredibly reassuring. I\u2019ve relied on that kind a lot too. The metaphors of surrender and powerlessness which animate a lot of AA spirituality really resonate for me; one of the most helpful things my first spiritual director said to me was to remember that I was being carried by Christ, not relying on my own strength.<\/p>\n And yet this kind of advice, too, can come across really badly\u2013it can provoke a sense of fatalism and even despair when it\u2019s heard by people who feel really distant from God and not carried or supported or changed by Him in some area of their lives. There\u2019s a subset of AA personal narratives which describe basically a huge spiritual epiphany, after which the desire to drink was entirely removed; if your story doesn\u2019t fit that it can be really discouraging to read about it, knowing that this hasn\u2019t happened for you. It can feel like being told that there\u2019s nothing you can do if you\u2019re not one of the chosen ones. You\u2019re just sort of helplessly lying there, passively waiting for something in your life to change.<\/p>\n Figuring out what another person might need to hear is incredibly hard, even (especially??) if you know the person very well and care about her very much.\u00a0Even the third option, not offering advice at all, can lead to hurt feelings or a sense of abandonment: I was suffering so much and you guys didn\u2019t even seem to notice!<\/p>\n At times it can be easier to advise strangers well, I think largely because strangers expect less insight and empathy. So if you empathize and listen and care, it\u2019s fairly likely that the stranger will feel surprised and heartened by what you get right and will have the self-confidence to dismiss what you get wrong.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t actually have any meta-advice here. Obviously almost everyone needs to listen more and advise less, and this is especially true for me; I need to be less pushy and less impressed with my own tiny insights. There\u2019s no \u201ctechnique\u201d for giving good advice\u2013suggestions like telling your own story can be just as pushy or just as easily-misheard as plain old \u201cdo this, not that,\u201d in my experience. I\u2019m not writing this post to try to excuse the genuinely overbearing, well-meaning but assumption-filled advice I\u2019ve given over the years. I do hope that by describing the nature and ubiquity of the problem I can maybe make it easier for us to be gentle with one another, especially when we receive inappropriate advice. In Ye Olde Gaye Catholicke Whattenotte Boke, about which more soon!, I talk about some advice I\u2019ve been given over the years by priests (about both my sexual orientation and my drinking problem), which I thought was really misguided. But I hope I come across as grateful for what the priests were trying to do. Sometimes even bad advice can be taken well, in the sense that you can recognize it as a sign of the other person\u2019s care for you; this is even true of the refusal to give advice, which can be seen as a sign of humility and respect for your autonomy (even when you don\u2019t necessarily want autonomy).<\/p>\n One last shot of AA wisdom, the strongest: I really love their saying, \u201cTake what you need and leave the rest.\u201d This too can be misheard! What if I don\u2019t know what I need? What if I make a mistake about what I need? But the saying isn\u2019t meant to solve your problem, only to point it out: to make obvious the ongoing need for prudence, and for forgiveness\u2013of yourself and of others\u2013when imprudence happens. (I\u2019m going to try to make \u201cImprudence happened\u201d the new \u201cMistakes were made.\u201d) The saying is meant to help you focus simultaneously on your own real needs and insufficiencies\u2013the places where pursuing personal desire is not working for you\u2013and also on the individuality of those needs. Not all of your uniqueness needs to be terminal<\/a>.<\/p>\n