Why people are obsessed with life advice and what they're missing

Last July on my birthday, I decided to catch up with a friend who’s in her 80s. I had not seen her for a few years as she lived between different cities and countries. I had met her for the first time at a workshop about two decades back when I was in my 20s and she in her 60s. What has sustained this friendship is my friend’s capacity for openness, curiosity and warmth that immediately makes me feel at home and the age difference just melts away.

Two hours into our conversation and lots of food, I asked her, “Tell me one piece of advice that you would want me to keep in mind as I navigate life?”.

She was quiet for a while and then said, “I don’t have any advice to give.”

Then she moved on to tell me about her life at different stages, how parts of her identity and sense of self kept changing, coming together and something falling apart too. There was a lightness to the conversation even as we discussed life’s curveballs while relishing the desserts we ordered.

This conversation has lingered with me and I find myself going back to it. We are living in a time when social media and conversations are filled with advice on how to build a good life, often featuring insights from people turning 30 or 40. Then there are those who talk about how they wish they had understood these “truths” earlier in life—almost carrying a regret for years they possibly navigated the world with a different understanding.

As I hear these conversations at parties, on social media and in therapy sessions, I wonder if we are trying to figure out a manual for life—trying to determine an algorithm that allows for building a life without any scope for error or detours. I wonder if our pursuit of trying to predetermine and optimise how we live is taking us away from experiencing life and immersing in it with our own values, while knowing that we are fallible.

One of my clients who had been in therapy for over four years told me, “I remember when we started therapy, you mentioned something which felt like an insight. In early sessions I cognitively accepted the insight, it made sense to me. But now I have emotionally integrated it into my life and am ready to embrace it. The fact that you never brought it up or rushed it helped. I could sit with it and figure for myself what to do”.

I feel this is true for our lives too. We do have the insights and the answers—but knowing is not the same as experiencing and then living them. Isn’t life about stumbling upon these answers as we try living and taking chances?

Perhaps what my friend was trying to gently remind me is that our lives unfold differently because so many causes and conditions contribute to how any moment is experienced.

Recognising that we can be mindful and intentional and yet accept that life will unfold in ways we can’t fully control is where the magic of ageing lies. Yet I do know that if anyone tries telling me this, a part of me still struggles because I want to make fewer mistakes and know the right thing to do. At the same time, I’m learning to hold different truths lightly and be patient and participate in life.

I recognise how every person—those who supported us, those who were present and those who were absent when we expected them to be present—has shaped my life. Most often in ways we can’t see.

Hence when we look externally for answers, we negate the factors that shaped our beliefs and values.

Maybe my friend’s biggest gift, through her sheer presence and sharing, was reminding me that I need to trust myself and life as I get older. Yet it has taken me almost a year to understand what she was trying to say.

Sonali Gupta is a Mumbai-based psychotherapist and author.