Not wanting to give advice

I feel like I stopped wanting to give people advice. And not in the fake way either: where you’re the “silent” type, but deep down you really want someone to get into a position where they ask for your advice or where your advice is expected. I’m just pretty indifferent to advice now. I don’t particularly like or dislike receiving advice, and I don’t particularly like or dislike giving it. I think it’s because I recognize now that most advice is bad or inapplicable. But not all - which is why I’m not anti-advice, just indifferent. The nuggets that are good are really good.

I also think this might be a developmental milestone. In the sense that you have to “mature” to be able to do this. Advice-giving is a weird mixture of things, and I’ve often seen status exchanges in advice-giving. If I’m giving you advice, that means that I’m above you, better than you in some way. I’ve seen (and been) that guy, where you have some limited exposure to the world, and, with altogether too much confidence, you go around telling people what they should be doing.

I think that giving advice is better when you’re explicitly asked for it, and receiving advice is better when you explicitly ask for it. Also, the advice should probably within a very narrow or technical domain.

But instead of advice, it’s better to show your work. Show what you do, show the results of what you do, and allow people to learn from you if they want to. I learn a lot from people by simply observing them and making my own conclusions. This way, the conclusions are mine, nobody prepackaged them and gave them to me. It was I who made the conclusions, and that makes me value them more.