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Dalton
Roberts |
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I once wrote a column advising you against giving advice. The main reason I gave was that no one takes it. In a half century of giving advice no one had ever taken mine. Nor had they taken the advice of others I have known with vastly superior intellects. At the time I wrote that column I had ceased giving advice to anyone at any time. Pretty soon I started noticing how unhappy I was becoming. I asked old Doc Findley to prescribe some smiley pills for me and he said, “Let us first see if we can find the root of your existential emptiness (Tennessee Temple grads use big words like that). How long has it been since you gave someone a little advice?” “Oh Doc, I quit giving advice long ago when I noticed that no one really wants it,” I said with a feeling of superiority. “Aha!” he yelped, “right there is your problem. You have been stifling a human drive as strong as the need for food, water, or sex.” He took out his prescription pad and wrote, “Give someone advice today.” I was stunned. I thought Doc was losing his mind again. But I love him so much I decided to honor his prescription. As soon as I stepped out on the street, I saw a man with a furrowed brow. I said, “Sir, perchance do you have a problem today,” and he began to tell me how bad his wife was treating him. How lucky he was! If there’s anything I am full of advice about its wives. I unloaded my wagon on this poor sucker and by the time I walked to my car, my existential emptiness had disappeared. Like David of old I felt so good I wanted to run through a troop and leap over a wall. Driving home I kept murmuring to myself, “Doc is a genius.” So please forget that I once counseled you not to counsel. If you repress your counseling drive, you are headed straight into existential emptiness. In the first place, any fool who has no better sense than to ask you for advice deserves it. Have no mercy. Cut him no slack. Never concern yourself that he will not follow it. It is not important that he accept your advice. It only matters that you give it. When you carry around a headful of wisdom, it gets heavy to tote. Get it out, my friend. If you don’t, you’re going to be asking your doctor for smileys. Do not spend the rest of your life walking around with that pasted-on smiley grin. You may be wrestling with the guilty thought that it cannot be right to do something simply because it makes you feel good. Look at it this way: we all know no one really wants or acts on our good advice. So giving it to them doesn’t hurt them at all. There’s an old Huna teaching that the only sin is to intentionally hurt another human being. Since there is no danger they will take your advice, you cannot hurt them. It’s too beautiful for words! Notice the warm feeling that steals over you when you give advice. It tastes and feels like warm honey. It is the closest you will ever come to omniscience and omnipotence. The closest thing to reality is feeling. Even though you may not really be all knowing and all-powerful, just feeling that way for even a nana-second is priceless. I went to a restaurant and their corn sticks almost broke my teeth. I sent them this advice: You are missing a lot of money by not marketing your corn sticks to the military. They would be lethal in hand to-hand-combat. You could also market them to railroads for use as spikes. They are just as strong as metal spikes and cheaper to make. How sweet it is to counsel. Never miss a chance.
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