Advice

You know, this advice thing, it seems neither blessed to give nor to receive as far as I am concerned. ('For you, nothing ever can be blessed', you say? And whose fault is it? It is because I am surrounded by people like you...). I mean, like I have never seen that it has been useful to either give the damn thing or to receive it.
Of course, I do not mean advice about things like 'How do I make a sambar?'. I know, I have waxed eloquent about how angry it makes me to hear that dratted 'Salt to taste' but, broadly, it can be considered useful. This sort of Instruction Manual type advice about the material world is all fine and I have no complaints about them. Except, of course, when people ask me to MAKE all those things but that, I suppose, is just part of the risk of taking advice of this sort.
The problem comes with the other sort. The 'What do you think I should do?' sort of guidance advice or the ones where an instruction manual is sought for  hazy goals like 'How can I become more happy?' or 'How can I become more successful?' - things like that for which people rush to bookshops and queue up to grab the latest chap who 'sold his Ferrari' or 'maintained his motorcycle the Zen way' or some such.
When a chap comes with a 'What do you think I should do?' to me, it is time to be very wary indeed. Mostly it so happens that he has a preferred choice. The ones who say it in so many words are easier to deal with. You just have to agree with his choice and find a couple of additional reasons why that is the best option. The more difficult ones are the chaps who won't tell you what they prefer to hear from you. You tell them one thing and, if it happens to be their own choice, you are Solomon reborn. If you happen to choose a different option, you are in for an argument at the end of which you will discover that, from the first amoeba to you, brains have been conspicuous by their absence in your lineage.
And then you have the inveterate 'devil's advocates'. They may have a choice, they may not, but whatever you say they will take the opposite side of the argument. There is no winning an argument with them. The moment you agree that they are right and their choice is best, they will turn around and argue the other side, leaving you feeling rather stupid for having missed out all these arguments when YOU were arguing that side. In all probability, they would have been arguing with themselves endlessly in case you had not turned up as a convenient scapegoat.
And, as for the 'How to be happy?' or 'How to be more successful?' or whatever...now THAT is the sort of thing that I have been finding that it is not blessed to receive advice either. I mean, over a period, I have been through hundreds of such books and I find that they largely end up saying the same things.
The problem, you see, is not in GETTING the damn advice. It is in the fact that I never did DO what they told me to do.
In THAT I think I am with the rest of the world. Else, why would people be rushing to bookshops or Amazon or the Internet for the 15th book teaching them how to be happy...other than for the fact that the first 14 did NOT make them happy.
Advice is easy. Unfortunately, results come only when you live according to the advice!
Too much work. I have stopped reading such books. Till someone tells me of one which will make me happy or successful or whatever merely by reading it.