GIVING ADVICE IS EASY. WHO PAYS THE PRICE?
When people give advice to others, they often don't think about where their words might lead. When it isn't their own life at stake, finding a solution seems easy. From the outside, everything looks simpler. “Do this. Say that. Be a little more courageous.” It's easy to say such things when you are not the one who will have to live with the consequences.
Perhaps that is why we struggle when carrying our own burdens, yet when we look at someone else's burden from a distance, we can easily imagine ourselves to be experts. An old story illustrates this beautifully.
A farmer had an ox and a donkey. The ox had a hard life. Every morning, he was taken out to the fields, where he spent the entire day plowing and hauling heavy loads. By evening, he would return to the barn exhausted.
The donkey, on the other hand, had a much easier life. He carried a few loads, occasionally gave his owner a ride, and then returned to the barn to rest.
One day, the ox could take it no longer and began complaining to the donkey:
“You have such a good life. You eat, you drink, and you rest. I work from morning until evening. I have a plow around my neck and a whip on my back. I am truly exhausted.”
The donkey thought for a while and then, with great confidence, offered him some advice:
“Tomorrow, pretend you're sick. Lie down. Don't eat. Make yourself look too ill to work. They won't take you to the fields.”
The ox followed the donkey's advice and pretended to be sick the next morning. The farmer did not take him to the fields.
But the work in the fields could not wait.
So they harnessed the donkey to the plow instead.
The donkey had to do the ox's work all day. By evening, he returned to the barn completely exhausted.
The ox looked at him and asked:
“What happened to you?”
The donkey replied angrily:
“Don't ever ask me for advice again!”
But the story doesn't end there.
The next day, as the ox was preparing to pretend to be sick again, the donkey gave him another piece of advice:
“Listen, yesterday they didn't make you work, but the farmer made me do your job instead. If you do the same thing today, things could get worse for you. He may decide to sell you to the butcher. He might even have you slaughtered.”
The moment the ox heard this, he suddenly recovered.
The next morning, he got up perfectly healthy and made it clear that he was ready to go to the fields.
And the donkey never had to see the plow again.
At first glance, it is a simple, slightly amusing story. But when you think about human relationships, you realize that it is not simple at all.
Throughout my more than forty years in academia, I have witnessed countless times how easily people give advice to one another.
“Do this.”
“Say that.”
“If you act this way, you'll win.”
“Forget about him.”
“You should be a little more cunning.”
We have all heard such things. Perhaps we have said them ourselves from time to time.
Because it is easy to look at someone else's life from the outside.
You don't know all their circumstances. You don't know their past, their fears, their relationships, their financial situation, or how much of the consequences of a particular decision they can actually bear.
And yet, after a conversation lasting only a few minutes, we often have our judgment ready.
This is where one of our most common mistakes begins.
We assume that a method that worked or seemed to work in our own lives can also be applied to someone else's life.
But everyone's field is different.
Everyone carries a different burden.
And not everyone can afford to pay the same price.
That was exactly the donkey's mistake.
He wanted the ox to get out of work.
But when the ox stopped working, the donkey had to do the work himself.
Sometimes the advice we give others works the same way.
We want a friend to make a particular decision. We talk to encourage them. Perhaps we genuinely have their best interests at heart.
But in the end, we are not the ones who will live with the consequences.
They are.
Over the years, I have come to understand something more clearly:
Sometimes, instead of telling someone what they should do, it is more valuable to ask them the right question.
A good friend is not always the person who has all the answers.
Sometimes, a good friend is simply someone who helps another person find their own answer.
When people hand over responsibility for their own lives to someone else, they will also have someone ready to blame when things go wrong.
“You told me to do it.”
“I did what you said.”
“You never told me this could happen.”
But in the end, they are still the ones who have to carry the weight of their decision.
That is why I now believe we should think a little more carefully before giving someone advice.
Because speaking is easy.
The real question is: Who will have to live with the consequences of those words?
Giving advice to someone else is easy; the difficult part is remembering that you will not be the one paying the price for the advice you gave.