Posted by Luke in 
*Image credit: brbankston
One of my pet hates is this idea that you can solve a problem by doing something obvious that you have already thought of. What am I talking about? It’s best described by an example:
“Hey Luke, did you know you can stop renting and buy a house?”
“No really how do I do that?”
“Well… all you gotta do is save up a deposit and the bank will lend you money.”
I call this kind of advice: all you gotta do is syndrome. Over the past year my frustration has grown exponentially as I have listened to voluminous amounts of horse plop flow forth. That’s right I said “voluminous”. I am up to my eyeballs with advice that tells me to solve my money worries that informs me that all I need to do is live on a budget and save more. I already know that! How’s this gem: all you gotta do is buy a house and you won’t be renting… I KNOW THIS!
Some of my favourite all you gotta do examples:
Problem: I don’t have a job
All you gotta do is: Buy the paper and find one!
Problem: The car won’t start
All you gotta do is: have you tried the key?
Problem: I got this credit debt I can’t pay.
All you gotta do is: pay it off.
Problem: There’s this crisis in the middle east
All you gotta do is: Forge a treaty.
All you gotta do is syndrome is the taking the problem and applying the most obvious answer to the situation. What I call “at hand” information. I was watching television the other day and one of big financial gurus was explaining how to have wealth. It was all good until my wife said, “where do I get the money to invest?”
And herein lies the problem… if you have no money (i.e. on the street) or you are like the 4 billion people on this planet who don’t have enough money to cover their needs what do you do with advice like that? I can tell you that those stuck in poverty wish to God there was a way out!
Please remember that next time you are giving advice to someone don’t be afraid to say that you can’t help them because you don’t know. I think it’s a lot worse to offer advice when you only have “at hand” answers. Still, in some cases you need to judge that because some people really need that kind of help. However, I can bet you that most desperate people have considered most of the obvious and almost ALL of the non-obvious solutions.
Powered by MightyAdsense
