Recently, I spent 3 days with many of my family members as all my siblings and some of our children gathered for a funeral out of state. We flew in from 3 different states, and we stayed at the same hotel. We all rented a 15-passenger van to convoy us all back and forth for days. Needless to say, we had a lot of up close and personal time together as we stayed, traveled, and ate all of our meals together. During that time, we gave a lot of unsolicited advice.
As the conversations flowed from one topic to another, catching up with what was going on in our lives, I noticed a lot of “You should do this,” or “This is what you need to do.” This often led to a “Yeah but you don’t understand,” or “That won’t work because of…..”
In some cases, the conversation would escalate with each side trying to convince the other of their point of view. And, one or both parties would feel like “You just don’t understand…” and a game of Verbal Volleyball would ensue.
A typical family dynamic, you might be thinking, (he/she, has been trying to tell me what to do since we were kids). But, as I was sharing this observation, one of my nephews said profoundly; “Unsolicited Advice is how we express ourselves.”
That statement made sense to me; at first, I thought it was just how my family expressed ourselves. Then, as I reflected on it, I began to form a different opinion. I believe we live in an environment where “Unsolicited Advice is how WE (the general public) express ourselves.”
And when the unsolicited advice is met with a “Yeah But” it comes across as a “make wrong.”
That “make wrong” leads to:
So here is my question - have you ever found yourself in a Verbal Volleyball match because of “Unsolicited Advice”?
More to come - stay tuned