Why are people willing to shower you with their philosophies but careless to provide you with needed advice?

Question

Actually I meant for example you ask someone a question and this person starts blabbering about their beliefs(mostly unrelated) as if he/she is trying to change the topic. Therefore you are not provided with any help or advice. No care or concern is shown whatsoever.

Answer 1

I think its because everyone (yes EVERYONE) is at least somewhat self-centered. Nobody hesitates to answer when somebody asks for an opinion. In a perfect world a person would like everyone else to think like they do. Of course this can never happen, but there's nothing stopping somebody from explaining thier point of view and trying to convince others that they are right.
On the other hand, when somebody asks for the advice of others, the people being asked must put themselves in the position of the asker. Since people tend to be self centered, we are less likely to give a good amount of honest effort to do that. Why should we worry about somebody else's problems when we have our own to deal with?
There may also be a bit of hesitation to give advice for a couple of other reasons...
First, on Yahoo Answers, complete strangers are asking advice of us. Why would we give advice to people we don't know at all? Additionally, since we don't know this person at all, we can't really give great advice that the asker can relate to. If a close friend asks advice, we'd be much more likely to give some well thought out, very helpful advice.
Second, if a person is asking for advice on a very serious matter, those people who are more conscientious would want to make sure that thier advice was good. That is to say, they do not want to give the wrong answer to someone else's problem. The answerer doesn't want to assume responsibility for the asker's decision, especially if it is the wrong one. Therefore, the advice may be more vauge, and not very good. Perhaps refering the asker to an authority on the matter, rather than giving a solution of their own, for example.
I hope that explination makes sense to you.
I also notice that while going on and on about my own philosophy, I am actually lending support to your theory. Oh sweet Irony.

Answer 2

I think there can be several reasons.

Sometimes it is not possible to give someone advice because they won’t understand the advice unless they’ve had a variety of experiences in life. In that kind of a situation it’s often better to just offer a philosophical thought to help steer them into the direction they need to go to find the answer to their problems.

Sometimes it’s a responsibility issue. Many people, while genuinely wanting to help, are also afraid to accept responsibility. Giving specific advice puts you on the hook whether it works or not. That’s not true of course, the person receiving advice is ultimately responsible by accepting or rejecting the advice, but unfortunately that’s not how other people tend to see it, instead they will feel partially responsible too and that’s not a nice feeling unless you happen to be confident about your advice.

Another reason is that it’s easier to offer philosophy. We all grow up hearing a lot of saying usually from our parents, later perhaps from our teachers and peers too. Often there is a situation where one of those sayings seems appropriate so it gets shared. I’ve known a lot of people like that, they’ll share a few sayings or philosophies as though that will make my problems go away. They don’t of course but the person sharing the philosophy at least feels good believing he or she has helped a little.

Not understanding the issue is another reason we don’t get advice to often. People tend to react to symptoms rather than taking the time to really understand an issue. Look at many of the answers that are offered, few explain the issue, fewer offer any reasons behind a suggestion, even fewer than that offer suggestions on how to implement the advice. Instead you get here or four words “dump him”, “grow up” stuff like that. That’s often considered advice and yet it’s not really. It’s certainly also not philosophy, though in a way the writer is sharing a personal feeling I guess.

It takes a lot of effort sometimes to understand an issue enough to offer some positive advice on who to deal with it. There are few who are willing to make that effort, and there are few who even know an effort needs to be made. And in their defence too, often the one with the problem is unable to articulate the issue clearly enough to help someone understand it enough to offer meaningful advice.

So in the end you get mostly philosophy because that’s a lot easier and less risky to provide.

I hope this answers your question.

Answer 3

By sharing my philosophies, I'm telling a person how I'd act in a given situation. I think this is better than giving advice because instead of telling another what they should do, you tell them what you would do, how, and why and what the outcome was for you. Then the person can weigh that against their own life and decide if that same approach might be good for them. It gives the person the information is directed at more control over how to use the information provided.

Answer 4

I have to agree. Your question is very vague. Perhaps your requests for advice could be more specific.
People know their own philosophies and can rattle on about them all day, and night, in my case. But to give advice is intrusive, and people want to be sure that they are giving advice that will help, and not hinder. Sometimes people don't have good advice to offer, so they do not answer the question. I don't think it means that they do not care.

Answer 5

The people who do that may do it because they don't have practical experience in day to day life of applying those philosophies to situations where they can draw parallels that will be useful to someone who is asking for advice.

Answer 6

giving out advice assumes the responsibility of it being good advice. If I advised someone to sell their home, and they ended up getting screwed.... I would feel somewhat responsible. In comparison if I were to say.... "if it were me, I would think about possibly selling my home"...i'm giving my own personal philosophy without directly advising on the best course of action...thereby alleviating the possibility of guilt if the person CHOOSES to adopt my philosophy and it doesn't work out for them.., because I gave them a philosophical opinion instead of advise.

Answer 7

Just as "Beauty is in the beholder" so is Listening is in the beholder. Perhaps, your listening is careless instead of their philosophies amiss. With philosophies comes advice and help. Try listening with understanding.

Answer 8

It's easy to share your philosophies with people but giving advice is much harder..philosophy is just like theory but when you give someone advice you're telling them to go put that into action. And for me, I'm hesitant to give people advice because I don't want to feel guilty if it doesn't work for them.

Answer 9

Hi Val, I think the term "needed advice" is saying that you want to here what you think is right. Some times people dont want the truth. So, when they here something they dont like they think its not good advise.

Take care, Mark

Answer 10

Philosophy proposes a way of life and you can pick out the advice from it for yourself.