Be Careful When Seeking Friends' Advice on Difficult Problems

Throughout life we all face many problems—school, career, love, family, even doubts about our own physical traits—and at first we tend to habitually seek advice and opinions from friends around us.

When seeking and listening to others’ advice, we must be careful and first recognize that “advice” itself needs to serve a growth-oriented, positive purpose.

Once you find that what you’re hearing is a display of negative mentality, it usually means you’ve asked the wrong person.

Even if those suggestions seem agreeable, they’re actually just an excuse to avoid the problem. But that’s ultimately not the real purpose of seeking help.

Not everyone is capable of giving advice. Sometimes the person you find is just another soul sinking into the same vicious spiral.

In the end, the two of you hold hands and happily wallow together in mutual consolation as you both fall.

Moreover, for other people, giving advice seems almost instinctive, because they bear no responsibility or consequences whatsoever. You could say such advice is like watching a soap opera to them—just a bit of malicious amusement.

There’s a proverb that goes: “Avoidance can’t solve a problem, but time can.”

Rather than finding the wrong advice, going off course, and trying to solve the problem the wrong way—only to sink deeper into the mire—

it’s better to slowly take a step back, giving yourself more spacious room to think, to carefully weigh the pros and cons, and even let time help you resolve your troubles.