If there is something people like to give, it's advice. I am guilty too. One of the strange things I have encountered in my recent public quest to summit Everest is that many people have advice for me. In part I am seeking it out. For example, I talked to the premier high altitude no bottled oxygen mountaineer about Everest, and he recommended not going in the first wave, because everyone goes then. I talked to others about how to train, and they recommended stairs and hills, which no one had specifically mentioned before.
People have been giving me advice about how I run too much for years.
In the engineering world, everyone has an opinion. I actually have a pending opportunity where I need to make a decision at work, at some point, and I have been doing other things, maybe subconsciously delaying making the decision. Regardless of the decision, someone will be unhappy. I'm not the best at disappointing people. I consider it a character flaw actually.
So often it seems the advice we want we can't get and the advice we get we don't want.
For the record don't lead your advice with "I don't care, but…"
There is no real summary to this idea that we get advice from everyone. I mean, when you have valid advice, by all means don't hold back, let people know. People obviously give advice based on something, even if that is a book they read eight years ago or a five minute segment they saw on the news three years ago. It can just be overwhelming sometimes. Making a decision based on a number of opinions or not clear facts, is hard. Yet that is what white collar work is, making decisions. We don't always make the best decisions, and it seems we make quite a few of them.
What do you think?
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