"Despise not Counsel. A Man is never nearer to ruin than when he trusts too much in his own Wisdom" - Thomas Fuller, 1731
It is well known that when you are stuck on a problem, that one should go and ask for some advice. We also ask for advice when starting out on a new endeavor, during our daily practice, and in reaction to adverse circumstances. No one out there really think that advice is always a bad thing, or that advice is never welcomed - we may feel insulted when somebody gives us unsolicited advice, but we are not insulted when we receive advice which we have sought for. We feel forced to accept advice from those we respect, such as friends or family, but we are not forced to follow that advice, for advice is not a command. The purpose of advice is to 'teach a man to fish', and to expand the story of his own wisdom. Thus, the meaning of this quote seems quite clear: to listen to counsel. We should listen to counsel because when we do not, we are reliant only upon our own store of wisdom, and not the greater store of wisdom which is within all the people you know. This is obvious, but it is not the whole story.
On the one hand, haven't you often noticed the phenomenon whereupon different people give you different advice? Some person advises you to be careful, and another says that you should strike while the iron is hot. One person says to save your money, another to enjoy your youth, and yet another says to act in moderation towards both goals at the same time. Who are you to listen to? We might say that you should listen to the wisest among the three, or the one who is the most successful. This is a good plan, if the person who is wise or successful is also aiming at, with their advice, the goal that you want to reach. There is always a wiser option, to a person who wants something else. The question is, what do you want? After all, when we are given many pieces of advice, we often choose between the pieces, in that we are of the opinion that one piece of advice is the best. Or perhaps, what we do is to remember all of the pieces of advice at the same time, and pick them up as needed, as we run out of the road that seems clear and obvious to us.
Advice can come in two forms, the active and the passive, or the action and the warning. An active piece of advice is one which urges you to act, to take that trip, save that money, or pick up that phone, because that action is what would be the wisest action to take. It asks, what do you want, and then says: This is what you need to do to achieve that. You should go on that trip or talk to that stranger, because if you do not, you will regret it. On the other hand, a passive piece of advice usually comes in the form of a warning. It first asks 'what do you want to happen?', and then tells you what precautions you need to take to avoid that outcome. Its primary purpose is risk management: You should save money for a rainy day, have a backup plan, or take the corner slowly, because if you don't, then something bad will happen. Both of these types of advice are fundamentally the same, concerned with the outcome of taking a risk, but one is focused on the possible loss, and the other is focused on the possible gain.
To take counsel is to listen to the advice of others, but to be wise is to decide on your own which advice to take, and which to ignore. The fundamental style by which you live your life and the level of safety you feel on a personal and professional level are going to influence you, and how you like to take your advice. Are you an adrenaline seeker, or a Early-to bed, early-to-rise sort of person? The danger of being alone in your wisdom comes about primarily because we, as people, are unbalanced. Over time, we tend to slowly grow more risk-averse, ro risk-accepting - it takes a strong personality and memory to not fall prey to your own nature. While the mere taking of advice is in effect subordinate to your personal will, so that the advice you actually hear and remember from the people around you is always moderated and controlled by your own 'wisdom', the simple advice to take counsel is not the only piece of advice which lies within this quote.
The first beyond-the-obvious idea we can pull out of this quote is that when we listen to the advice of counsel, we should be aware that the origin of that advice is the wisdom of other men and women just like us. That is, each piece of advice can rebound upon its originator just as easily as it flies to you. For example, the quote I began this piece with was a quote uttered by a living person - and if they are right, it it is worth remembering that this quote is a piece of advice, and that this piece of advice is something uttered by a certain person, and so is a sentence which originates from his own wisdom. The quote is self-referential. Many quotes and pieces of advice are like this - don't we feel awkward when we see someone uphold the old axiom of 'do as I say, not as I do'? We can of course suspect that the person there is simply failing to live up to their ideals, but it also might be the case that what they are telling you to do is not the best and most wise choice, and rather you should do what they do, and follow their example and not their words. We have to judge such circumstances for ourselves, and so we again have the advent of the whole attempt to learn and apply some counsel coming back to our own individual decisions.
The second piece of information which we can tease out of this quote is the piece of information which is left unsaid, but which is assumed in it - that many heads are better than one. If all the world thinks that your idea is a stupid one, perhaps they have a point - perhaps you really are missing something, and just trying to do again that which has failed before; Over the trenches the same old way, and dying the same old way. This doesn't have to be the case - it may well be that the old wise heads are wrong, and that you can be the new Wright Brothers, or the new Marie Curie, if only you are willing to try, willing to go against common sense and debunk the beliefs of the nay-sayers. It comes down to you of course, to your wisdom in the end, just as the acceptance of any piece of advice does. So, to judge a piece of advice, you need not only a firm understanding of the people who gave the advice to you, but also a firm understanding of the situation the advice is meant for, its powers and limits. Often, we do not have the luxury of knowing all this. Advice so often comes in which are not rules and are not strict and definite, but instead form single sentences in your brain, or whole fields of related but vague-sounding information. You need your brain to put it all together, and to decide what information to apply and when.
For this activity you have but your singular brain, which may at times seem like so little. However, you are not alone, for you also have your inner counsel. I speak of counsel in the plural sense here, as in the days of your lives. If I was to give advice for taking advice, I would say - start out slow. As a babe, test the limits a bit, but listen to others most of the time. As you gain in memory, power, wisdom, and resilience, begin to trust yourself more. When you are grown, the most important counsel to listen to is the you in the back of your head - your experience. Don't forget your experience of being wrong though, as well.
Comments
Post a Comment