Advice: ‘guidance or recommendations offered with regard to prudent future action.Something you seek from people when you are unsure.’
What makes us choose certain people for advice? When we choose them and hear what they have to say, what makes us so sure that what they are asking us to do is okay for us? And at what point do we make the decision that no matter what this advice, it sounds good enough to follow?
What happens then, if the effect of that advice backfires and things go wrong? You act upon the advice and then things fail. How many people are the ‘bigger person’ and realize that the person giving the advice is not to blame? Most want a target – and that target is the person whose advice they sought and acted upon.
So what really should one do? How do we understand the notion of advice and result?
If I have pain in my chest and I go to my GP to diagnose it – I have to then rely on the expertise of that GP, right or wrong, and then follow their advice. Sometimes, if we apply our mind and think things through, our intuition does guide us and we get a ‘feeling’ based on how well we know ourselves, if we should act upon this advice of the GP. We then go for a second opinion. But in the event we blindly follow the GP, is it his or her fault if their remedy does not work? They are doing things based on their knowledge and prior experience in giving this remedy. Maybe we should’ve insisted that its chest pain and a cardiologist is the only one to go to!
When someone comes to me for advice, I will naturally give them advice that I would give to myself or to my kids. That is where the intentions will be in giving advice. But then where expertise is concerned, I will give advice based on my beliefs and my personality : emotional people give emotional advice, practical people give practical advice, religious people give religious advice, wise people – well I think they refrain from giving advice. They know that the receiver is too immature to listen.
In surah Kahf, Chapter 18 of the Quran, Musa (a.s) / Moses sets out to seek knowledge from Khidr. In his journey Khidr tells him that he wont have patience with the things Khidr does. Musa (a.s) says he will. Every time Khidr does something Musa (a.s.) does not understand he questions him – having no patience, just like Khidr predicted, until the latter tells him that they must part ways and explains why he did what he did.
Many people and scholars have interpreted this story to mean that when things happen in the end of times and we don’t understand them, as they may seem really extreme, we must not question the wisdom of God and have patience..others have indicated that we need to find this wise and learned person in our life and just go with what he/she says without questioning them even if you don’t understand nor like the results.
But this doesn’t happen. We are so impatient, ready to lash out at others, that we not only see our downfall and our bad decisions as the fault of those that may have guided us but we also don’t own up to the fact that the action was taken by us. We have a brain, we made that decision after seeking advice. No one forced it down our throat. Yet that is not what happens.
Shaitan will also sit back on they day of judgement when we blame him for our sins – that he made us act upon them. He will say I had nothing to do with it. You made the independent decision to do what I suggested. But in this case, his intentions will always be to make us do what takes us to hell. Whereas our friends and family often don’t give us ‘bad’ advice. They just give us advice based on what they would do in our position. It is our fault for not thinking things through and our immaturity if we blame them.
The Saudi Expat 