Whose scale are you using today ?

"This is not important for your life" or
"You should do XYZ to be happy in life" or "Listen to what I am saying or else you will suffer later, I know how things work"
and the list is endless.............

I am sure that you must be familiar with one of these lines or its variant, thanks to the social nature of we the human beings. All the development and knowledge that we have around us, is a result of the accumulated knowledge of all the human beings who existed before us. Hence, it is natural to look up to the people who have 'walked the path'.

Now imagine a hypothetical situation; sometime in the past, if people had suddenly decided (quiet retardedly) to simply follow what their predecessors had said or done, and in the process stopped contributing to the prevailing knowledge. It would have resulted in a horrendous blunder ...... we would be stuck in a time capsule!! Imagine you and your friends in a time like the 'medieval ages', where the judiciary was not separated from the monarchy, women empowerment was unheard of, plague epidemic and comet sightings were connected etc.

Each person measures life with their own perspective, and in the process, builds up a scale to measure situations in life and thus acts accordingly. When such a person 'gives an advice', he/she is essentially handing over a copy of his/her own scale to you and asking you to measure your life with it. How can you measure the 'importance' or 'value' of something, when you are using someone else's perspective? This is no different to a case where you are trying to figure out the length of something, and someone offers you a weighing machine!!! What use would a weighing machine be (in such a situation), however accurate it may be?!?!?!

So, when you go out today, or face a situation, or seek advice, or worse .... when you are forcibly given advice ..... stop and ask yourself, "Whose scale are you using today?".

Also, for courtesy sake, be cautious when it is your turn to hand over a 'scale' :-)