Defining Good Advice

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Defining Good Advice

Good advice started out as something that I could grasp. It was something I was able to understand. But that all changed. What is it exactly that constitutes good advice? When we started this discussion a couple weeks ago, I knew what good advice was, or at least I thought I did. Good advice was something that came from the mouth of someone I respected and looked up to. It came from my parents, grandparents, and Davey, the man I wrote about in my narrative. Good advice usually lead to something good, but sometimes bad things were the result of that good advice. Consider the situation of me telling on my best friend for drinking. Davey told me, “stick to your guns, Perp.” And I did. I told on my best friend. “Everybody turned their heads when I walked by in school.” That couldn’t have been “good advice”.

So if good advice can lead to bad things, then how can it be considered good advice? Well, I have tried to look at it in a simple way, but it just got more and more complex. Maybe it can be related to Douglas Crane’s comment about example C on contractions. “This part I would love to toss out and never consider, but it’s impossible to deny the information given.” And, as I said in our discussion on contractions, “I have no need for example C because it is way too much information for me right now. But who knows, maybe later I might need that much info, but as for now I don’t.” Was I really ready for his advice? Looking back, I don’t think I was, being sixteen and all. And that is what made his good advice so hard to understand. My mind could not comprehend the “big picture”. But Davey’s mind could. He had already been sixteen. He absolutely knew that it would help me in the future. I am now twenty years old and a little more wiser, which made me come to the conclusion that Davey was right, because even though his advice ended up hurting me, I am a stronger person now because of it. I still use his advice today, even with the negative consequences involved. Some people have told me I am stubborn. I just tell them that I am “sticking to my guns”.

Advice can be given in any manner, but that doesn’t make it good or bad advice.

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