I’m wondering if what I’m about to describe ever happened to you. You make a decision, let's say regarding a job to apply for or perhaps a person to go out with on a date. You get the job and you work at it for awhile; or you go out on a date, maybe even more than one date.
And things don’t go so well. I won’t get specific, each situation is different.
Has it ever happened to you that after you make the decision, after you get yourself into professional or personal situation, after it doesn’t go so well, that someone close to you says:
You know - I had a feeling that wouldn’t work out.
Perhaps at this point you may be wondering why the person didn’t say anything before but you may ask, why did you have such a feeling that it wouldn’t work out?
And the person may say some version of, I think by now, I know you better than you know yourself.
Is it actually true that someone else can know us better than we know ourselves? And whether or not this is true, how do we feel about advice altogether?
I’d like to reflect on how we deal with advice. Do we want other people to give us advice? Are we more upset when people offer their opinions or when they don’t, especially if our decisions end up not being good ones?
Some people love to give advice; some people may be hesitant, especially if they’ve been told once or twice or more to mind their own business.
I just finished reading the second of Yuval Harari’s major books. Yuval Harari, a gifted (at times sarcastic) Israeli scholar, wrote the bestselling book Sapiens, which traces major trends in the development of our species up until now, and he followed it up with Homo Deus, which offers predictions on where we as a species are heading.
Harari claims that we are getting to a place where non-human entities can know us better than we know ourselves.
Computer algorithms to varying degrees know us better than we know ourselves and they are getting smarter.
So, for example, a study was commissioned by Facebook that compared how other people know us with how Facebook knows us.
if you like 10 different things on Facebook, then Facebook knows more about your personality, your likes and dislikes, than your colleagues at work. You like 70 things, FB does better than friends. Like150 things, it does better than family members. And now - wait for it - you like 300 things and Facebook knows you better than a spouse.
So it follows, claims Harari, that computers will eventually know us even better than we know ourselves. The computer will tell us, take that job or don’t; date that person or don’t; move to this town or don’t.
I’m going to say something which to Yuval Harari may seem naive and old-fashioned. There is a subjective sense, a sixth sense, if you will, that people have, that I’m not sure computers can have. My father, may he rest in peace, looked at a few of the people I dated before I met Deanna and while he was polite, he was not enthusiastic about these people being compatible with me.
He met Deanna and liked her immediately and a few years after we were dating, when I said I’m not sure about long-term commitment blah blah blah, he said, and I’ve shared this before - Don’t be stupid. You won’t do better you’ll do worse. He said this because he had gotten to know her and because he knew me. Could he have been wrong? Sure he could have. But he wasn’t wrong.
And it’s hard to imagine that a computer would have done a better job.
So for now, I want to talk about advice from people.
What should we do about the well-meaning suggestions, the “I know you better than you know yourself” interventions that come from family and friends? When it comes to taking advice from others, I believe we can easily fall into two extremes.
The first extreme is that we ignore it completely. We say to ourselves, or out loud, some version of, you are not me, you don’t know what I’m feeling, I am going to ignore what you have to say. This is understandable, especially when the people around us take liberties with inserting themselves into our lives.
The second extreme reaction we can have is the exact opposite. We become overly concerned with what others think and say. We are afraid to make even small decisions, to participate in a class or a program, or to put on an outfit to go out, for example, until we receive the advice and approval of other people. It is understandable to want the approval of others, but it gets problematic if this all but obliterates our own independent thinking.
I think we need to learn how to navigate between these extremes, neither to ignore all advice completely, nor to become a slave to what everyone else says and thinks, and I want to offer some suggestions for how to do so:
First. We should evaluate where the advice is coming from. Does this person care about me, does this person have a track record of having my best interests in mind. Not everyone means well, and sometimes even people who do have biases in certain situations that we need to recognize. But if we sense that someone has good intentions, why not at least hear what that person has to say?
Second. Related to the first, we should, if practical, consider advice from more than one person. You know the classic statement - if 10 people tell you your fly is open, you might want to check. Seeking input from more than one person helps you to calibrate the difference between outlier comments and trends. By the way, even outlier comments can be helpful at times, and that of course requires consideration on a case by case basis.
Third. We should never relinquish our own capacity to make the ultimate decisions for ourselves. My dad wasn’t thinking about committing to Deanna; I was. His life wasn’t about to change as profoundly as mine was were I to commit. The appropriate response for me, given my love for him, my profound faith that he loved me, the fact that others close to me including my mom felt the same way, was to make my own decision to commit to Deanna, just as her decision to commit to me was ultimately her own.
One of the reasons we may bristle at advice is because we believe it limits our own independence. But it need not limit our independence. Listening to the opinions of those who care about us doesn’t mean we have to follow their advice. We can, and must, take ultimate responsibility for ourselves.
The Torah is filled with people who give advice. Rebecca advises her son, Jacob, how to act. She says, repeatedly, שמע בקולי shema b’kolee, literally listen to my voice, as she advises him repeatedly how to conduct himself - take this, do that, go back to the old country and find a wife. Yitro advises his son-in-law Moses how to act, using an extension of the phrase, שמע בקולי איעצך shema b’kolee ee’atz’kha, listen to my voice as I advise you, in this case, how to delegate responsibility. Mordecai advises Esther to confront the king in order to save the Jewish people.
In the ancient Biblical context, it seems, refusing to take advice entirely or in part would have been considered quite disrespectful. It’s hard to imagine Jacob, Moses and Esther saying, “Thanks, but no thanks” to the advice they were given.
Nowadays, I hope that we have the independence to consider and, at times refuse in whole or in part, the advice that we are given. Sometimes we may need to say, “I hear you. I know your advice comes from a place of love. But I’m going to do what I believe is right, even if you disagree.”
At the same time, I hope we will strongly consider well-meaning and reasonable advice that we are given. It is a sign of immaturity, I believe, if we reject reasonable advice out of hand because we want to prove how independent we are.
Do our loved ones know us better than we know ourselves? At the end of the day, it’s hard to know what that means, and it doesn’t really matter. We, like Jacob and Moses and Esther, need to make the choices that we believe will work best for us since we are responsible, we are on the line, for our own choices.
I want to conclude with the following words, taken from תפילת הדרך t’filat haderekh, the traveler’s prayer. Ultimately, as others offer us their blessings and advice, we will consider it, make our decisions, and then continue our own individual and intertwined journeys:
May it be Your will, Lord, our God and the God of our ancestors, that You lead us toward peace, guide our footsteps toward peace, and make us reach our desired destination for life, gladness, and peace. May You rescue us from the hand of every foe, ambush along the way, and from all manner of punishments that assemble to come to earth. May You send blessing in our handiwork, and grant us grace, kindness, and mercy in Your eyes and in the eyes of all who see us. Amen.
Originally shared with the Temple Israel of Great Neck community on March 30, 2019
And things don’t go so well. I won’t get specific, each situation is different.
Has it ever happened to you that after you make the decision, after you get yourself into professional or personal situation, after it doesn’t go so well, that someone close to you says:
You know - I had a feeling that wouldn’t work out.
Perhaps at this point you may be wondering why the person didn’t say anything before but you may ask, why did you have such a feeling that it wouldn’t work out?
And the person may say some version of, I think by now, I know you better than you know yourself.
Is it actually true that someone else can know us better than we know ourselves? And whether or not this is true, how do we feel about advice altogether?
I’d like to reflect on how we deal with advice. Do we want other people to give us advice? Are we more upset when people offer their opinions or when they don’t, especially if our decisions end up not being good ones?
Some people love to give advice; some people may be hesitant, especially if they’ve been told once or twice or more to mind their own business.
I just finished reading the second of Yuval Harari’s major books. Yuval Harari, a gifted (at times sarcastic) Israeli scholar, wrote the bestselling book Sapiens, which traces major trends in the development of our species up until now, and he followed it up with Homo Deus, which offers predictions on where we as a species are heading.
Harari claims that we are getting to a place where non-human entities can know us better than we know ourselves.
Computer algorithms to varying degrees know us better than we know ourselves and they are getting smarter.
So, for example, a study was commissioned by Facebook that compared how other people know us with how Facebook knows us.
if you like 10 different things on Facebook, then Facebook knows more about your personality, your likes and dislikes, than your colleagues at work. You like 70 things, FB does better than friends. Like150 things, it does better than family members. And now - wait for it - you like 300 things and Facebook knows you better than a spouse.
So it follows, claims Harari, that computers will eventually know us even better than we know ourselves. The computer will tell us, take that job or don’t; date that person or don’t; move to this town or don’t.
I’m going to say something which to Yuval Harari may seem naive and old-fashioned. There is a subjective sense, a sixth sense, if you will, that people have, that I’m not sure computers can have. My father, may he rest in peace, looked at a few of the people I dated before I met Deanna and while he was polite, he was not enthusiastic about these people being compatible with me.
He met Deanna and liked her immediately and a few years after we were dating, when I said I’m not sure about long-term commitment blah blah blah, he said, and I’ve shared this before - Don’t be stupid. You won’t do better you’ll do worse. He said this because he had gotten to know her and because he knew me. Could he have been wrong? Sure he could have. But he wasn’t wrong.
And it’s hard to imagine that a computer would have done a better job.
So for now, I want to talk about advice from people.
What should we do about the well-meaning suggestions, the “I know you better than you know yourself” interventions that come from family and friends? When it comes to taking advice from others, I believe we can easily fall into two extremes.
The first extreme is that we ignore it completely. We say to ourselves, or out loud, some version of, you are not me, you don’t know what I’m feeling, I am going to ignore what you have to say. This is understandable, especially when the people around us take liberties with inserting themselves into our lives.
The second extreme reaction we can have is the exact opposite. We become overly concerned with what others think and say. We are afraid to make even small decisions, to participate in a class or a program, or to put on an outfit to go out, for example, until we receive the advice and approval of other people. It is understandable to want the approval of others, but it gets problematic if this all but obliterates our own independent thinking.
I think we need to learn how to navigate between these extremes, neither to ignore all advice completely, nor to become a slave to what everyone else says and thinks, and I want to offer some suggestions for how to do so:
First. We should evaluate where the advice is coming from. Does this person care about me, does this person have a track record of having my best interests in mind. Not everyone means well, and sometimes even people who do have biases in certain situations that we need to recognize. But if we sense that someone has good intentions, why not at least hear what that person has to say?
Second. Related to the first, we should, if practical, consider advice from more than one person. You know the classic statement - if 10 people tell you your fly is open, you might want to check. Seeking input from more than one person helps you to calibrate the difference between outlier comments and trends. By the way, even outlier comments can be helpful at times, and that of course requires consideration on a case by case basis.
Third. We should never relinquish our own capacity to make the ultimate decisions for ourselves. My dad wasn’t thinking about committing to Deanna; I was. His life wasn’t about to change as profoundly as mine was were I to commit. The appropriate response for me, given my love for him, my profound faith that he loved me, the fact that others close to me including my mom felt the same way, was to make my own decision to commit to Deanna, just as her decision to commit to me was ultimately her own.
One of the reasons we may bristle at advice is because we believe it limits our own independence. But it need not limit our independence. Listening to the opinions of those who care about us doesn’t mean we have to follow their advice. We can, and must, take ultimate responsibility for ourselves.
The Torah is filled with people who give advice. Rebecca advises her son, Jacob, how to act. She says, repeatedly, שמע בקולי shema b’kolee, literally listen to my voice, as she advises him repeatedly how to conduct himself - take this, do that, go back to the old country and find a wife. Yitro advises his son-in-law Moses how to act, using an extension of the phrase, שמע בקולי איעצך shema b’kolee ee’atz’kha, listen to my voice as I advise you, in this case, how to delegate responsibility. Mordecai advises Esther to confront the king in order to save the Jewish people.
In the ancient Biblical context, it seems, refusing to take advice entirely or in part would have been considered quite disrespectful. It’s hard to imagine Jacob, Moses and Esther saying, “Thanks, but no thanks” to the advice they were given.
Nowadays, I hope that we have the independence to consider and, at times refuse in whole or in part, the advice that we are given. Sometimes we may need to say, “I hear you. I know your advice comes from a place of love. But I’m going to do what I believe is right, even if you disagree.”
At the same time, I hope we will strongly consider well-meaning and reasonable advice that we are given. It is a sign of immaturity, I believe, if we reject reasonable advice out of hand because we want to prove how independent we are.
Do our loved ones know us better than we know ourselves? At the end of the day, it’s hard to know what that means, and it doesn’t really matter. We, like Jacob and Moses and Esther, need to make the choices that we believe will work best for us since we are responsible, we are on the line, for our own choices.
I want to conclude with the following words, taken from תפילת הדרך t’filat haderekh, the traveler’s prayer. Ultimately, as others offer us their blessings and advice, we will consider it, make our decisions, and then continue our own individual and intertwined journeys:
May it be Your will, Lord, our God and the God of our ancestors, that You lead us toward peace, guide our footsteps toward peace, and make us reach our desired destination for life, gladness, and peace. May You rescue us from the hand of every foe, ambush along the way, and from all manner of punishments that assemble to come to earth. May You send blessing in our handiwork, and grant us grace, kindness, and mercy in Your eyes and in the eyes of all who see us. Amen.
Originally shared with the Temple Israel of Great Neck community on March 30, 2019
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