Good advice vs. useless advice

The self-help genus is one of the more popular one when it comes to book sales and is, in my view, mostly nonsense. Not all, mind you, but much. And so is advice. Most advice is meaningless. It does little to help the person getting it. It is often feel good nonsense, not something that can reasonably be followed.

In life it is important to be happy is a piece of advice I have often heard. Like no shit. Why didn’t I think of that? Well… that sure did turn my life around. I have another one. It is better to be rich and healthy than poor and sick.

But advice can be good. It is good most often when it is simple, clear and tailored to the person, something that can be difficult in a generic book for a mass audience. You can get decent advice that you can follow and improve things in your life.

I was originally going to use bad advice in the title, but it is different than useless. Bad advice is something that you can follow and would lead to bad outcomes. You seem sad. You know what you should do? Drink more whiskey! Or try heroin, makes me feel happy! Now that is bad advice.

To make the point, I will tell you of a few pieces of good advice that I have received, as oppose to a few pieces of the other kind.

Useless advice: it is important to be yourself! More useful advice: You hair looks like crap long, cut it shorter.

Useless: Get fit! More useful: create a fixed schedule 3 times a week to work out, at the same hour. Discipline beats motivation.

Useless: live your dreams. More useful: Buy better fitting clothes, you may think it does not matter but it will help your self-esteem.

You get, I assume, the point. Now useless advice is not completely useless. It helps people keep things in perspective. Look at the big picture. But it can be rather useless by itself, if not accompanied by more concrete things. In general yes keep the big picture in mind, but do little things, one at a time.

So advice, dear reader, how do you like yours?