Who am I to give advise?

So...

this morning I finally took the time to reply to an email from a friend that lives in Australia. He's a former teacher, in his early 50's, that is going though some rough times on a personal level. I met him in Indonesia, during a diving trip. We got along well, from the start, as we have the same way of looking at the world.

Now... in his mail, he was telling me about some of the things he is going through, at the moment. How he is trying to pull his life back together, but keeps bumping into setbacks; which, slowly, gives him the feeling that it is somehow personal between the universe and him. As if the universe was doing whatever it can, to mess up his life.

Well... I replied to his mail, giving him some well meant advice. Things I have learned from when I was going through such a phase. Not that I could give and real powerful advise. In fact, the only feedback I gave him was to continue having a positive approach to life and to not give up, despite the setbacks. It is what I experienced: when you are trying to get out of the gutter, you won't crawl out at once. Somehow, it is a process, in which you will encounter many things that will hit you hard and will make you wanna give up and just go back to the gutter again. My advice, however easy as it sounds, was to just keep going.

Now, I am not a psychologist, just a random person, trying to help another person out, by listening to his story and somehow trying to give some useful feedback. However, the question that's going around in my mind, right now, is, who am I to give advise? Do people (always) want advise, or do they just want tell what's on their mind, without having to listen to or read feedback? This is a question that has been spinning through my mind ever since I read the following quote: sometimes it's better to listen to a few questions, rather than to have all the answers...