But, what is more effective when someone is suffering? Giving advice or truly listening? This doubt is very common and the answers can be surprising.

When we are going through a tough time, those around us react one way or another. Some people immediately offer solutions: they tell us what we should do, suggest activities or recommendations. Giving good advice is not bad, but the question is: do we really feel heard or simply pressured?

On the other hand, there are those who choose to listen attentively, allowing us to express what we feel without interrupting. This type of attitude does not guide, but it does comfort and makes us feel accompanied in suffering.

Neither of the two ways is infallible: unsolicited advice may not help, but consolation does not always mark the path to follow. The key is knowing what the person needs at that moment. Maybe they first want to be heard and later, when ready, will accept suggestions.

Recognizing the difference between advice and consolation can help us provide more suitable support and make people feel more understood. It also allows us to ask for what we really need when we are in difficulty.

Finally, this article does not replace any professional therapy, but offers basic ideas to accompany those who are going through a tough time. If necessary, do not hesitate to seek specialized help for a more personalized treatment. The world already has enough difficulties without adding unnecessary suffering.

Then, when he has about twenty or more spectators, he starts to deliver a speech filled with phrases explaining the virtues and miracles of his mir-a-cu-lous tonic, capable of curing sadness, your child's lazy eye, syphilis, or making crops yield more.

Then appears the “bait”, in the form of a gentleman on crutches, slow and looking not very healthy… Until he takes a sip of the magic elixir and look! He throws away the crutches, jumps a couple of hops, and he’s cured!

People can’t believe it, everyone lines up so they don’t miss this miracle and the stock —note this, Jocelyn!— is limited. Once he has sold all the boxes, the stranger shuts down his stall and hurries off to the next town, only making a quick stop to pick up outside a certain gentleman without crutches who looks like a longtime acquaintance…

Let’s change scenes and modernize the background: a very muscular and aggressive guy shouts through a little screen while explaining that exercising, getting up at 5 am every day, and kissing up to the boss will make you rich like him.

Elsewhere, a very calm-looking girl tells you she is su-per-hap-py because she drinks some I-don’t-know-what tea and lights a candle that gives off pleasant smells.

Or a video of a man made by Artificial Intelligence saying that, by doing these exercises for 5 minutes, you’ll have the body of an athlete or another who tells you the secret to picking up girls is to say “seven secret words” which obviously he won’t tell you unless you watch his entire video and pay for one of his courses…

The world is full of “entrepreneurs” who, whether knowingly deceiving or acting in good faith, promise us paradise at bargain prices: if we do this or that, if we pay for this or that, we will become prettier, richer, smell good, and have an easy and happy life…

When, in truth, having an easy life requires a lot of work (or very rich parents) and being happy… "well", it’s complicated.

A historical perspective on the latter will be useful: in the Maxims of Shuruppak, written in Mesopotamia around 2600 BC, a father recommends to his son that, if he wants to have an ordered life, he must avoid excess, control his emotions, and get along well with others.

The Instructions of Ptahhotep from Egypt around 2400 BC (give or take a year) describe how to have a good life: avoid anger, be generous, and listen before speaking, among other things.

And so we could keep searching and searching and searching through the 4600 or so years that separate us from these two: self-help sections have gone from being interesting shelves with books containing good ideas to a set of “Do as I do” and other su-per-e-ffi-ca-cious formulas…

When, if that were true, there would only be one book on the whole shelf!

Be careful with miracle and utopia sellers! Your servant here leaves you now, since I just saw an ad for a course on how to write interesting articles in 5 minutes and it will only cost me 20 euros… and that even though it’s a course valued at 200!!! A steal!!!!