This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2005, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

I would really like to find the guy who invented advice and have him beaten senseless. It wouldn't be a real stretch. He was most of the way there when he started giving it.

Then again, it was probably a woman. I say this because most of the advice I've received in my life has been from women. It came first from mom, then my sisters, teachers, assorted girlfriends, eventually my wife, and now my daughters.

Most of this advice has been relatively harmless, like the time my mom said, "If you wear underpants on your head to school, the other kids might laugh."

It's hard to go wrong with advice like that. Even if the other kids hadn't laughed, it would have been stupid trying to learn the alphabet through the leg hole in a pair of butt-huggers.

Less appreciated is advice that turns out to be bad. Not only do you have to suffer the consequences, the person who gave it gets off without a scratch: "Well, you didn't have to take my advice."

Right. And if you don't take their advice and things go wrong, it's: "I told you so," when the cops come to get you.

Most bad advice comes from men. In fact, the closer you are to a guy, the worse his advice is likely to be. You'll get something like, "Heck, I wouldn't take that kind of guff from my wife."

If your friend said that - and he's still married - he's a liar. So, don't believe him when he says other stuff such as, "That's what I would do," or "makes sense to me." He's only saying this so he can get people to bet on what will happen to you.

The most annoying advice givers are the professionals. Dr. Phil and Oprah Winfrey lead the pack here. They earn gobs of money giving the sort of counsel you could get from a dog.

The advice isn't bad. It's obvious. Yet they make it sound like the wisdom of the ages. If Dr. Phil has a bank-robbing, heroin-addicted, wife-cheating guest on his show, the advice always comes down to: "Y'all better quit it."

Short of a gun, you can't stop people from giving you advice. What you can do is decide whose advice to take. From best to worst, here is a quick way of judging advice: It's a good idea to take it from people in a position to make you wish you were dead for not taking their advice to heart.

In my experience, this includes judges, drill sergeants, bosses, doctors, wives, the IRS and really large animals.

Next is advice from people who aren't actual authority figures but still might know what the hell they're talking about. For example, propane grill safety tips from someone whose hair is still smoking.

Finally, there's advice that doesn't make any difference whether you follow it or not. The advice to run from a nuclear detonation fits here.

In the end, we probably give ourselves the best advice. I've made it this far by just listening to the hair on the back of my neck. You could do worse.

But that's just my advice.

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Tribune columnist Robert Kirby welcomes mail at 90 S. 400 West, Suite 700, Salt Lake City, UT 84101, or e-mail rkirby@sltrib.com.