5/9/2025
Advices
There are many good advices out there as much as there are great quotes. But I've come to realize that these advices are particularly bad given the different contexts they are given. And I don't mean context of advice but rather context of life as well.
The other day somebody told me. "Win, in a relationship you shouldn't say I love you all the time. It will make the relationship stale and then it won't last", this stuck with me for some time since me and my girlfriend use these words indefinitely almost endlessly.
- But why shouldn't you say I love you all the time shouldn't we express our affection to those that we care?
- But I don't see my parents saying it all the time and their relationship is great so does that mean I shouldn't say it?
Now we can debate whether we should always say I love you to our loved ones. But the point of this post is to understand that some advices might just not apply to you. People have different experiences and they are also at different stages of their lives.
It would be the same to tell a beginner developer to learn VIM motions rather than learn a coding language since that will help them in the long run. Not only does this advice not make sense. But there are also so many factors to consider that the advice becomes poison rather than medicine.
Qualifications of Advices
Does this person have the qualification to give you this advice This is probably the simplest form to gauge advice and one that a lot of people use. But people are often quick to judge and care more about money, status, and age which clouds their judgement.
So how do we determine if an advice is useful? I think this is how my subconscious brain rate a legitimate advice
Context of Experience
Is the person who gave you advice in the position you want to be in terms of this advice? I think this might be the most important indicator of all. If you have to make a north star metric of what qualifies as a good advice, ask yourself if the person you are taking advice from is someone you would want to be in that situation.
And I'm not saying measure their position in things like, wealth, power, status. Although these things are often what we compare other people to. I meant are you taking love advice from friends that are single? Are you taking money advice from people that are as broke as you might be, etc.
Context of Situation
Is the situation of the advice applies to the same situation? Many things constitute this. Some obvious ones to list are:
- Time
- Group settings
- Wealth level
For instance the reason why we might not take an advice from a grandparent is not because of their age. It's actually contradictory since age comes with experiences which leads to wisdom. But why we might not take it is because the advice couldn't be applied to the current times. They effectively have 0 experience in technology compared to modern day kids.
Orthogonally, an advice from someone who works in big tech and engages with corporate politics would only hinder those that are working in a tight knit group as a startup. These advices are only applicable to the similar situation they present themselves in. - Group Settings
Life Nuggets
My girlfriend and I have this discord text channel labeled #life-nuggets . It's a series of timeless quotes we post on the channel whenever we find them. Marked with timestamps and author.
Timeless advices presented in quotes often feels so awesome to me. Being able to give advice that is applicable to life in general is hard. But perhaps the ones we selected all catered to what we feel might make a "good life" and that in itself is another conversation.