Responses to Unsolicited Advice

In this post, Eastin reflects on "Unsolicited Thoughts on Unsolicited Help and Advice", diving more into how her OCD affects her reaction to unsolicited advice and how society's views could change.

Here I am, rewatching some unsolicited advice about unsolicited advice, and giving some unsolicited advice about our reactions to unsolicited advice! Let’s go!

I do wonder how much my OCD affects my reaction to unsolicited advice, and sometimes even unsolicited help. My OCD is a lot about following patterns to know which action to take next, sort of like an obsessive strategy for life. It’s rooted in perfectionism and anxiety surrounding responsibility. So when I receive unsolicited advice, it disrupts my patterns of thinking enough that I have to sit back and rethink my whole pattern, logic, and strategy going forward. Too much unsolicited advice will completely overwhelm me. It often makes me frustrated because I don’t know how to go forward anymore or what the perfect path is. Unsolicited help can sometimes actually be really helpful, but other times, it interrupts the action I was going to take next, then I have to rethink the pattern again. We discuss the idea of interrupting patterns later in the episode as a reason why people get annoyed, and I identify it in the episode still as hurt pride. While I think hurt pride is a major factor in the reaction to unsolicited advice and help, perhaps it can also simply be the mental energy it takes to consider another path and the frustration of needing to.

Based on the discussion in this episode, I do think unsolicited advice is not intrinsically a negative thing. What makes it negative is the idea that most people react negatively to it. This is an idea that I mention in passing in the episode but let me try to articulate it a bit more here. If the majority of people react negatively to something, typically, you should avoid doing that thing to avoid negative interactions. So unsolicited advice has become “not okay” because of the notion the person giving the unsolicited advice should know the other person will take it negatively, not because it is intrinsically negative. If we as a society changed how we react to unsolicited advice, then unsolicited advice wouldn’t be negative (most of the time). As we recognize in the episode, the majority of emotional difficulties with unsolicited advice is rooted in the receiver of the unsolicited advice and their insecurities. Unsolicited advice is usually not meant to be an attack, so maybe we should stop receiving it as one.

The conclusion we came to at the end of the episode: the only thing you can control is your reaction, so let’s try to react more positively! (Speaking to myself here, too, folks!)

Watch the full episode below and let me know what you think in the comments!