Advice : Taking and Giving
Where shall my hot blood be spilled?
Amidst the clatter of guns and bodies lay still.
Where shall my joy be placed?
Within the empty bodies of the chained and crazed.
How can I fulfill the promise I made to you?
It can never be fulfilled, and doing that makes you a fool.
Should I give you support as you walk on your solitary path?
Give me the support you always give, even when the going is tough.
How can I be a healer, if I have hurt and been hurt?
Healer you can never be, but you can martyr yourself for disasters to avert.
Should I love you, even when you are in another’s arms?
Why can’t you love me, when we’ve been through fire and harm?
Why must I take such advice, when I am talking to you?
Take my advice you fool, because you are me and I am you.
-Nick Lai Weixuan, ‘Advice’ (23/02/2007 Friday)
Giving advice seems to be an easy thing to do, especially when one has a rich personal experiance to draw from. But what happens when the person receiving the advice does not follow on the advice given? Would you take it upon yourself to remind that person? Or would you leave that person be?
What if your personal experiances are limited and clouded by them, impact your own neutral viewpoint in this situation? What if you are mislead by personal bias? What if your advice does not work at all at this unique situation and you are not aware of them at all?
I remember the few instances where I gave advice to others. It works for some, or it has to undergo heavy modification to suit another person's experiances and situation. Sometimes it backfires, and I find that I have alot of work to do to pick up the mess in the aftermath. Advice is really such a hard thing to do properly.
Yet I do not feel proud that I am guiding others in their decisions. I don't feel empowered at all. I feel burdened infact, that I have to shoulder the burdens of others. I get frustrated sometimes that others cannot see what I view was the easiest solution right infront of their eyes. There are also times where I habour bad thoughts, of instead giving the right advice, give them the worst advice, just to see what happens. Granted that did not happen at all. But the potential act was there, and I shudder at that thought sometimes.
Of all the advice to give in the world, advice on relationships are the trickiest. Financial advice can be backed up with calculations and data, advice on career path can be based on a person's qualifications, advice on academic route can be based on a person's scholarly aptitude. Advice on love and relationships? Not a chance in hell you can base it on something tangible.
Relationship and love advice based on intangibles are resolved intangibly. A person's character can never be fully understood enough to form a strong enough foundation where advice can be laid upon. It is a continuous trial and error session by the individual until he hits a winning combination just right for his or her personality and his or her significant other.
I gave some advice to a person lately, on her love life. I don't feel good about it. Because known to herself and myself for that matter, I like that girl alot. And I've let my personal feelings cloud my judgement more than once. And despite myself knowing fully well that the relationship might not last, I encouraged her to go ahead simply because I tried to balance my advice with encouragement, that the person she is involved in might not be as bad as I and some others have felt or said about him. I feel happy deep down that the relationship failed, and was thankful because the guy showed his true colors right before the girl decided to finally commit full scale into the relationship.
I was dead wrong.
Somehow, amidst the celebratory joy within me, I felt that something is wrong. There is this intangible somewhere here and there which just does not seem right. The girl, instead of being relieved, was heartbroken and feeling really down. What happened? Wasn't there minimal emotional commitment during the few weeks? But I guess I failed to calculate one intangible within the whole equation.
The human emotion.
Unpredictable, the very stuff of chaos. Emotions come and go without anyone realising. All that anger and disappointment in the girl, all hide the undercurrent of blossoming affection she holds for the guy. And when I realise this as I lay in bed one night unable to sleep because she got upset again, I nearly hit myself in the head. Why didn't I realise this earlier? Yet I stopped berating myself. Was there anything I could do even if I knew? Nope. Could my advice be altered so that I can help her better? I don't think so.
What I can do now, is to pick up the pieces of a messy aftermath pretty much partially inspired by myself and a few others out there with comments made on the relationship. On the guy actually. And all I could do is to stay by the girl and comfort her while she goes through a recovery phase. And try to cheer her up too. Laughter is the best medicine for everything, and I hope that sincerity would help me through.
I hope for the best.
"Have no Fear, Nick is Here"
Amidst the clatter of guns and bodies lay still.
Where shall my joy be placed?
Within the empty bodies of the chained and crazed.
How can I fulfill the promise I made to you?
It can never be fulfilled, and doing that makes you a fool.
Should I give you support as you walk on your solitary path?
Give me the support you always give, even when the going is tough.
How can I be a healer, if I have hurt and been hurt?
Healer you can never be, but you can martyr yourself for disasters to avert.
Should I love you, even when you are in another’s arms?
Why can’t you love me, when we’ve been through fire and harm?
Why must I take such advice, when I am talking to you?
Take my advice you fool, because you are me and I am you.
-Nick Lai Weixuan, ‘Advice’ (23/02/2007 Friday)
Giving advice seems to be an easy thing to do, especially when one has a rich personal experiance to draw from. But what happens when the person receiving the advice does not follow on the advice given? Would you take it upon yourself to remind that person? Or would you leave that person be?
What if your personal experiances are limited and clouded by them, impact your own neutral viewpoint in this situation? What if you are mislead by personal bias? What if your advice does not work at all at this unique situation and you are not aware of them at all?
I remember the few instances where I gave advice to others. It works for some, or it has to undergo heavy modification to suit another person's experiances and situation. Sometimes it backfires, and I find that I have alot of work to do to pick up the mess in the aftermath. Advice is really such a hard thing to do properly.
Yet I do not feel proud that I am guiding others in their decisions. I don't feel empowered at all. I feel burdened infact, that I have to shoulder the burdens of others. I get frustrated sometimes that others cannot see what I view was the easiest solution right infront of their eyes. There are also times where I habour bad thoughts, of instead giving the right advice, give them the worst advice, just to see what happens. Granted that did not happen at all. But the potential act was there, and I shudder at that thought sometimes.
Of all the advice to give in the world, advice on relationships are the trickiest. Financial advice can be backed up with calculations and data, advice on career path can be based on a person's qualifications, advice on academic route can be based on a person's scholarly aptitude. Advice on love and relationships? Not a chance in hell you can base it on something tangible.
Relationship and love advice based on intangibles are resolved intangibly. A person's character can never be fully understood enough to form a strong enough foundation where advice can be laid upon. It is a continuous trial and error session by the individual until he hits a winning combination just right for his or her personality and his or her significant other.
I gave some advice to a person lately, on her love life. I don't feel good about it. Because known to herself and myself for that matter, I like that girl alot. And I've let my personal feelings cloud my judgement more than once. And despite myself knowing fully well that the relationship might not last, I encouraged her to go ahead simply because I tried to balance my advice with encouragement, that the person she is involved in might not be as bad as I and some others have felt or said about him. I feel happy deep down that the relationship failed, and was thankful because the guy showed his true colors right before the girl decided to finally commit full scale into the relationship.
I was dead wrong.
Somehow, amidst the celebratory joy within me, I felt that something is wrong. There is this intangible somewhere here and there which just does not seem right. The girl, instead of being relieved, was heartbroken and feeling really down. What happened? Wasn't there minimal emotional commitment during the few weeks? But I guess I failed to calculate one intangible within the whole equation.
The human emotion.
Unpredictable, the very stuff of chaos. Emotions come and go without anyone realising. All that anger and disappointment in the girl, all hide the undercurrent of blossoming affection she holds for the guy. And when I realise this as I lay in bed one night unable to sleep because she got upset again, I nearly hit myself in the head. Why didn't I realise this earlier? Yet I stopped berating myself. Was there anything I could do even if I knew? Nope. Could my advice be altered so that I can help her better? I don't think so.
What I can do now, is to pick up the pieces of a messy aftermath pretty much partially inspired by myself and a few others out there with comments made on the relationship. On the guy actually. And all I could do is to stay by the girl and comfort her while she goes through a recovery phase. And try to cheer her up too. Laughter is the best medicine for everything, and I hope that sincerity would help me through.
I hope for the best.
"Have no Fear, Nick is Here"
posted by Anzillu | 9:05 AM
1 Comments:
Everyone have their own perception of the situations they face daily. They are those who are guided by their emotions and many others are more rational. For the part of "how can I be a healer, if I have hurt and been hurt", all I can ask is that, who will be a better healer then? One have never been hurt before (Don't know how it feels, never went through that in life) or the one who has been hurt, know how it is and have managed to climb up from that chaos and how about the one who just never gets hurt, ever? You make the guess. The whole world is filled with unique human beings. More then 6 billion people on this earth, ever wondered how everyone is like, what do they see in life? I do that some times, walking down a lonely car park, looking at all the different cars, I marvel about those behind those wheels, what kind of a relationship will I form with them all. Will he or she be my friend, enemy, or remain a stranger? Then I wonder at the splendor of human relationships. We all have a long way to go in life, have you wondered who we would meet next? The one you love now, will always be part of your life or at least your memory, you will share an unbreakable bond. However, that, doesn't mean you won't fall for another. Who knows, you will even surprise yourself, finding that one person who may bring out that unknown nature (beauty) from within you.
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