Why Do Keep Asking For Advice From People Who Have No Business Giving It?

Here’s a couple of life tips for ya. Free of charge.

1. Don’t ask non-thin people how to get thin.
2. Don’t ask non-rich people how to get rich.
3. Don’t ask illiterate people how to learn to read.

Because they will give you advice and it will suck. It’s always flattering to be asked for advice and few can resist ¹ the temptation to wax philosophical in areas far outside those of their expertise.

By asking English speakers who have not yet learned how to read Japanese…how to read Japanese, you’re essentially asking Paula Deen how to cook without butter and sugar. You’re asking Lindsay Lohan how to control your drinking. You’re asking that guy who can’t read good…how to read well. You’re asking Eeyore how to be charismatic — how to be happy and not talk in a monotone.

For your own sake, try not to do that. Just…try. For me. Do it for me. Try not to ask Patrick Stewart how to be a successful YouTuber. Because, he’s a great guy, but he doesn’t duck hen know.

If you want to know how to succeed at something, ask people who’ve succeeded at it. You wouldn’t deliberately choose an incompetent doctor to heal you. So why do you choose obviously, demonstrably incompetent people to help you solve problems they themselves have clearly failed to solve?

I mean, come on. You realize your chances at throwing a question on a free forum on the Internet and having a cool, competent, well-adjusted person answer it are painfully slim, right? Slimmer on some subjects than others. You wouldn’t just pick up a free couch on the street because, well, it might contain bed bugs. Maybe it got peed on. Maybe ugly people had sex on it. But you’ll pick up free, pee-soaked ideas and put them into your mind, just like that?

Rully?

Let me tell you something about human beings. When they get good at something, they like to get compensated for it. Doctors don’t spend their youth reading thick books and not sleeping and buying state-of-the-art gear for their practices just so they can not get paid. So, simply by riding the free advice train, you’re already putting yourself at great risk. You’ve saved a buck or two on buying a book, but you’re paying through the nose for the privilege. To be fair, though, there aren’t that many good books on how to get used to Japanese, so…

Anyway.

You wouldn’t seriously try to diagnose and treat an illness using Wikipedia and WebMD, would you? Just because you’re sick, doesn’t mean any medicine will do. You could hurt yourself, put yourself in a worse position by just ingesting pills and FUD willy-nilly. Sort of a reverse Hippocratic oath.

Bad advice can and will hurt you as badly as any chemical you could ingest. Bad advice is a killer of dreams, of progress and even of bodies. Bad advice will take you from the stars to the gutter. So…stop swallowing mental pills from random strangers.

Including me. Don’t listen to me. Give me the finger. Mutter cursewords at me. I would rather you did that — I would rather you retreat into your own mind and listen to yourself — than just go taking free Internet advice. I would rather you go wrong in freedom than go wrong in thrall to conventional wisdom ². If that’s what it takes, I will take one for the team: Team You.

Because, dayom. ³

PS: Here’s how you ask the Internet for advice in such a way that you don’t get damaged.