Clueless Meddlers

Has anyone run into this? A caring but clueless meddler sees someone with problems vaguely like their own and starts giving advice, which you know is off the mark. They're not the type of person who mentions once or twice how something worked for them, but persists even when their errors are pointed out to them.

I don't see this often with diet-related stuff, since my mother and I both do low-carb, my meetup group drinks coffee and I avoid health subjects unless others bring them up, and my coworkers are mostly CPAs familiar with HIPAA and have work of their own to worry about.

I think the last part is key: work of their own to worry about. Everybody has something they need to be doing--and ought to be doing it instead of creating problems from thin air so they can save the day.

Robert over at Living Stingy wrote about the urge to save the day a while back. I might have quoted it before, but it's worth repeating.

Before you decide to become an "activist" and fight the man and "save the day" ask yourself the following:

1. Does the day need saving, or are things pretty much going OK as they are. Bear in mind that things not going exactly as you would have done it, if you were in charge is no excuse to stir up trouble....

3. Do you have your own shit together? Have you saved enough for retirement? Are you about to lose your job? Is your house clean and tidy, or a hoarder's nightmare (hoarding and "save the day" are related, remember). Are you smoking pot or abusing other drugs? Could the energy you put into "Saving the world" be better spent saving yourself?

Just something to think about. There are a lot of things in this world which won't go your way. You have to pick your battles wisely....

And yes, I used to buy into this "Save the Day" nonsense, until I had an epiphany in the matter. The day doesn't need saving, and people don't want to be saved from their own folly - and will fight you tooth and nail on this. The best you can do is make a rational case for your viewpoint and then move on.

And when you point out errors and it seems to go unnoticed, someone reads your blog and sees their own issues (not what is, you know, actually there), kind of like Toni and Candace on Portlandia, all you can do is move on.

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Pain, Pain, Go Away!

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