The sentence, “Don’t tell me what to do,” can be taken in two opposing aspects, which in a way connect for me. Coming from a family of mostly women, and of course, a typical African family, it’s almost impossible not to hear or say that sentence at least a thousand times in a few weeks. I knew that giving unsolicited advice and generally telling my sisters things wouldn’t bode so well in their heads.
I’d finish eating and of course, I knew to clear my plates and just as I was about to clear it, Mom or one of my sisters would just go, “Tess, don’t leave without clearing your plates.” And my first instinct would be not to do it at all because everyone saw that I was going to do it. At that moment, you almost feel like yelling, “Don’t tell me what to do!” But of course, you don’t. For quite obvious reasons.
I think it’s because I’ve felt like this a lot that I was always sceptical of telling people what to do. It’s always been a part of me, giving advice. Most times it was solicited advice but of course, there are other times. I had and still have a lot of friends who come to me for my thoughts on different issues in their lives.
I’ve always derived pleasure from gifting my friends with my “pearly words of advice.” Lol. Jokes aside, I’ve always loved it. And because people genuinely seemed to always want to hear what I had to say, I felt at some point that I should pursue Counselling professionally. And I may still do it. But that’s by the way though.
What I’m trying to say is that, in my not-so-many years of advising people, I’ve experienced a lot of things. And since I was used to always giving advice, I was oblivious to the times when it felt irksome to the person listening to it. Of course, that’s one of the few things I learned. I also got to know that I should use my discretion when advising so that I wouldn’t be made to take responsibility(as it happened a few times) when a friend would randomly make decisions and claim that it’s cause you told her to do so.
Still putting that aside, I remember an incident that happened with one of the ladies I knew. She usually came to me for relationship advice and that was kind of my specialty then. I could talk about relationships for days so of course she came to me and told me about her verbally abusive boyfriend. She told me that he made her feel small. And kept talking about how possible it was that someone would say he loves you but go out of his way to ensure you cry because of the words of his mouth? Shoving your insecurities in your face time and time again?
I’d felt empathic for her in that situation and after telling her how I saw her, which was that she was beautiful, smart, down to earth and literally listing all her beautiful qualities, I went ahead to tell her that her peace of mind was worth more than the internal pain she was made to go through. She wiped her tears, nodded and hugged me. And in my head, I patted myself that I’d saved another woman like me.
Contrary to my expectations, the lady didn’t leave the relationship or even give her partner a piece of her mind. The next thing was to post videos of a fancy outing they went together. I only arched my eyebrow and concluded that he must have apologized or something, even though I doubted that someone would suddenly stop being verbally abusive if it was a habit.
A week later she came back with even bigger tears saying she couldn’t do it anymore. I tried to talk her out of it, even violating what I supposed was one of the ethics of the profession by outright telling her to leave him since I couldn’t stand her pain. We ended the conversation with more hugs and I was absolutely sure things would go right this time.
It didn’t. It was worse and I even got a call from said partner warning asking that I stay away from their relationship and stop trying to steer his woman away from him. I remember being so pissed off and after berating myself for caring too much, I resolved in my mind never to advise her, let alone tell her what to do.
It was sad and a lot happened. Thankfully, they’re no longer together. But I’d learnt my lesson and also found ways to apply it to subsequent “pearly advice” I gave out. You just have to experience just how severe these situations could get to stop trying to steer people’s lives the way you want to go. The Bible teaches us to apply wisdom and discretion in everything. So, I know better now.
Jhymi🖤
My entry to The Thinker's Corner Challenge by 
Image is mine.
