Advice Is Like Snow…

Among the greatest needs of mankind is that of communication⎯understanding, getting through to people⎯not just words, but meanings; not just phrases, but spirit; not just speech, but heart. So many misunderstand so many⎯especially motives: why people do what they do, why they say what they say, and what they mean by what they say. And failure in giving effective counsel is frequently failure in communicating real meanings and motives.

Advice, in the first place, usually implies that something is wrong, that something is being criticized that something should be changed. “One of life’s greatest paradoxes,” said Milton Sills, “is that nearly everyone wants to improve his circumstances but hardly anyone wants to improve himself.” Or, as Samuel Johnson said it: “Advice is seldom welcome. Those who need it most, like it least.”

Certainly no one likes it if it is given in the wrong way. And so often words get in our way, for the same words don’t always mean the same thing to different people, not even sometimes in the same household: between husband and wife, between parents and children, or between the children. Nor, in fact, under different circumstances, do the same words always carry the same meaning even to ourselves. Furthermore, the pressures of life often prevent us from giving due attention to the subtleties and sensitivities of some situations, and we often blunder with words and walk roughshod where we should have approached with delicacy and deference.

Yet we need to talk, to communicate, to understand and how to know that what friends and loved ones tell us is usually well intended. Children and young people need to know this and not resent counsel. By listening and heeding they could save themselves many heartaches, and one longs to plead with them to listen, to consider, to accept; for even when advice is not without irritation, it is the substance that counts, the truth, the intention.

We would also plead with parents to have understanding and patience in the how of what needs to be said.

As to all of this, Coleridge commented: “Advice is like snow; the softer if falls the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind.”