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Why I Can’t Write Advice Articles
A listicle
3 min readMar 18, 2021
- It would be presumptuous of me to think that what works for me universally works for others.
- I’m not a clinician, therapist, or consultant with extensive client experience. I’m not a life coach, preacher, or guru. I’m a storyteller. I presume readers can pick whatever lesson from a story that’s particularly relevant to them— if there were any, at all.
- I am, however, a teacher by profession. The best ones among us are too aware of the limits of what they teach, they hardly make guarantees of anything. They teach by example, not by prescription.
- In writing as in life, people look for empathy, not advice.
- The difference between poetry and advice: one is a distillation, the other is a reduction.
- When I find an advice listicle with tiny explanations under each number, I tend to just skim. I read the headings for the main points, and read no further or in between. I’m done with it in seconds, and move on. It’s a quick-read manual, not a story to linger on and relish.
- As a person, not as a writer, I also can’t bring myself to give advice. My life is a glorious mess, I struggle passionately. Because I don’t want to occupy that hallowed place that everyone calls “success,” I can’t give advice towards it. I can only find and…
