Defining Good Advice :: Definition Essays

Defining "Good Advice" Perhaps â€Å"good advice† is best defined as advice that fits into our lives, and produces desirable results. Luke reacted to this statement with the following, â€Å"I don’t know that I agree with this [the previous sentence]...good advice can be received and disregarded just as easily as it can be used, and then we may never know the results.† If and when I disregard advice, I must not find it to be that good. How well any advice fits into our lives and if we like the results is a harder thing to accomplish than one may think. If Kate had told me to â€Å"put my chin up and smile,† sure, Kate would be trying to help, but I was looking for something more specific that fit directly into my situation. Good advice can come from absolutely anyone. In narratives from our class, advice came from friends, relatives, colleges, experts, and enemies. However, all the advice we consider good advice was given to the advisee as an option, not a command. â€Å"Good advice should not be pushed on a person,† said Jeff Stotko. Not many people were willing to accept advice from someone who was telling them what to do. Instead, good advice was the stuff we are told and then we have to decide what to do with it. Good advice has a tendency to take us away from our own point of view and explore more options to the situation. Had Jackie’s contractor flat out told her without explanation that she couldn’t put in the window, she probably wouldn’t have listened to him. Her daughter’s room would now be in the living room, literally. When he told her about the problem and gave her the time to figure out what she wanted to do on her own, the advice became good advice. It d oes this because it makes Jackie decide for herself. We want to live our own lives, right? We don’t want others to live them for us; we just want their input sometimes. When the class looked at the three sections on contractions, it was pointed out that section A seemed to condemn contractions. We were all very wary to accept the paragraph which just stated without explanation that contractions are bad. The same goes for advice. I wouldn’t listen to someone who just says what I am doing is WRONG.