whose values are you borrowing when you ask for advice?

People stop asking for advice and started asking what they should do. There’s a difference.

The difference feels small, but I don't think it is. Advice used to be something we sought after we'd wrestled with a decision. Now it often feels like the first step. Before we've formed much of an opinion ourselves, we've already texted the group chat, opened Reddit, searched TikTok, or called a friend. Over the years, it seems decision-making became a collaborative exercise.

There's nothing inherently wrong with that. Some of the best conversations I've had have helped me see blind spots I couldn't have found on my own. Other people can ask questions we wouldn't think to ask ourselves, and sometimes they lend us perspective at exactly the right moment. I don't think adulthood is supposed to be lived in isolation, and I also don't think wisdom comes from refusing to listen.

What I've become more interested in is the advice itself. More specifically, where it comes from.

People can only speak from experience. Their experience. Even the people who are very thoughtful and capable of considering different perspectives still begin with a life they've already lived. Their advice is shaped by the decisions they've made, the consequences they've experienced, the risks they regret taking or avoiding, and the things they've come to value over time. Every recommendation has a point of origin, even if we don't always recognize it.

Even the most thoughtful advice begins somewhere. It begins with a life already lived, a collection of choices already made, disappointments already endured, and joys already discovered. We tend to imagine advice as objective, but most of it isn't. It's deeply personal.

One person tells you to protect your peace. Another tells you that anything worth having requires sacrifice. Someone insists you're settling. Someone else thinks you're expecting too much. Every conversation sounds convincing because every conversation is internally consistent. It makes perfect sense from the perspective of the person saying it.

That's what I've started listening for. Not whether someone's advice is right or wrong, but what it quietly reveals about the life they've built and the life they believe is worth building. Advice has a way of exposing our priorities long before it exposes a solution.

We spend a lot of time asking people what they think we should do. Maybe the more interesting question is what their answer assumes about a good life. Stability? Freedom? Achievement? Family? Security? Adventure? None of those values are inherently better than the others, but they aren't interchangeable either.

The next time you ask someone for advice, listen closely. They may be answering your question, but they're also telling you something about themselves. And before you borrow their answer, it might be worth asking whether you're borrowing their values, too.

Every answer sounds obvious when someone else doesn't have to live it.