May 5
The Advice That Was Not Asked For
A friend mentions a difficult afternoon, and we hear an invitation to solve their life. We have useful experience and do not want to keep it to ourselves. Yet halfway through our explanation, they grow quiet. We assume they are considering our wisdom. They may instead be waiting for us to stop so they can finish telling us what happened.
Sharing experience is most useful when it meets an actual conversation. The same story can offer companionship at one moment and crowd someone out at another. We can ask whether a suggestion would be welcome, or simply stay with what they are saying a little longer. That pause need not make us passive or unhelpful. It allows us to discover why they brought the matter up. Being heard may be the help they wanted before they are ready to think about what to do.
What might I hear if I did not treat every difficulty as a request for advice?
Their story has a little further to go.
For the A.A. nerds: Alcoholics Anonymous, “Working With Others,” pp. 91, 95.