We’ve all had them, friends or relatives who won’t listen to what we consider to be sound advice. Feeling helpless and frustrated as we watch them slowly sink.
Someone you know is heading into trouble because they haven’t completely understood their situation. There is, perhaps, a hole in their knowledge or experience, but they can’t see the hole because they don’t know what they don’t know. You can see the approaching problem through personal experience and have researched solutions. You try to help by offering advice. Much to your dismay, the advice is ignored, and they press on regardless. You are frustrated, perhaps angry, and the friend has fallen into an avoidable hole and wants help. Why did they choose to ignore the advice?
The friend didn’t ask for advice; how could they? They don’t know what they don’t know. So you’ve rolled up and stuck your nose into their business with what, to them, is unsolicited advice. The shutters come down, and they’re not interested; the advice immediately gets junked (Razzetti, 2018).
Advice is only helpful if someone asks for it (Razzetti, 2018). But here lies the paradox, how can they seek advice about something they don’t know about? I know from experience that rather than accepting researched advice, the ‘friend’ would prefer to seek advice from what they consider a reliable source -be that expensive or ill-informed.
Ultimately as long as the friend has the mental capacity to make decisions, however bizarre they appear, they have the right to decide on which advice to seek or accept; after all, they have to live with the consequences.
You have the right to determine if you subsequently help them out of the hole. That’s your choice, be pragmatic, there is no point in throwing good intentions at an unresolvable situation.