Opinions, Advice and Forcefullness

I had an interesting discussion today with my mom and Andrea. It was mostly about religion with some personal stuff tied in, but it all came down to one thing really. What is the difference between giving your opinion, giving advice and forcing what you believe on someone else? Sometimes these three things can be one and the same, sometimes they can be very different.

I feel that giving your opinion to someone is easy. Telling someone how you feel about something is something that anyone can do. It is a simple statement of thought that is not usually meant to offend anyone or to change someone else's opinion. It is just the way that you feel about something or someone. The person that you are talking to may share your opinion and feel the same, or they might not.

On the other hand, you can give someone advice. This is you telling someone what you think they should do, based on your own opinion. Usually when you give advice you know that the other person might not have the same opinions as you and therefore might not take your advice. This is how it should be anyway. Why do some people get offended when they offer someone advice and the advice isn't taken? When you give someone advice on how they should do something, it is based on your opinion and is supposed to give them another option for something that they can do. This leads into my final point.

Giving someone advice can border on trying to force someone to do something. You may feel that your opinion and the advice that you're giving based on that are correct. This may not be the case for everyone, this is why you have your own opinions. It is not fair to assume that everyone believes the same things that you do, if they did they wouldn't need your advice. They would simply be able to know what to do on their own. Some people may give you advice in such a way that it seems like you have no other options. Sometimes the person giving the advice may be right, maybe there are no other options. On the other hand, there could be other options and the advice-giver just feels that their idea is the best or that none of the other options are right.

My opinion is that this is very narrow-minded. How is it fair for someone to assume that everything that they are saying is right? It's not. You, and only you, truly know what is right for yourself. Even someone close to you, someone who knows and loves you, cannot know what is best for you more than you know what is best for yourself. When you ask someone for advice, it is up to you whether or not you want to take the advice, not up to the person giving it.

You give advice to someone to try and help them, not to try and brainwash them into thinking and feeling the same way that you do. To then turn around and tell someone that they are wrong for not feeling the same as you is just hypocritical. If you're telling them that they should be listening to you, they have every right to turn around and say "How do you know that I'm wrong? Maybe you should be listening to me." It's never fair to always assume that you are right.