Learning for oneself

I'm a fixer. I like to fix things...no, not things. I couldn't fix a single thing around this apartment if I tried! Our currently broken toilet is a testimony to that.

I like to fix people. More accurately, I want tofix situations in such a way as to help people avoid having to learn lessons that I've already learned...the hard way.

I realize that most people don't want to be given unsolicited advice, so the culturally acceptable thing to do is sit back and watch people learn for themselves. Also, I know that a person learns best through experience. (I really do agree with Confuscius' "I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.") But it's really hard.

On the other hand, when I think back on my life I can think of a few distinct instances in which I wish someone had told me I was making a bad decision. (For example, the decision to attend Bible College. Why didn't someone tell me that was a dead end choice?) There's no guarantee I would have changed my mind, but I'd like to think that I would have at least considered the decision a little more carefully.

I'm not speaking of a particular instance in which someone in my life is walking into a situation that could be better by a wave of my magical advice wand, but rather a general sense within me. Whenever I see someone in a place I have experienced and conquered (or at least survived and learned from), I want to transport him/her to the other side where I am.

I wonder if this is what being an adult is.