A friend of mine recently told me I should consider mentoring younger men. I’m almost in my mid-40’s and have made plenty of screw-ups and learned lessons from them.
Mentoring can be tricky though. I firmly believe in mentoring, and I have done it a few times. It doesn’t always work. I had to cut one guy off completely. I was trying to mentor a former teen from a church I used to go to, because he was going into IT, which is one of my fields. But then, he’d ask me for advice, then argue with me. I guess he wanted me to tell him what he wanted to hear, and I don’t roll that way. I finally blocked him since it was unproductive for both of us. It took me several years to reach that point.
A mentor is not there to help you bullshit yourself. A mentor is there to somewhat guide you and offer advice and lessons from his own experience.
A mentor is not there to do the work for you. It’s better if you do the lifting yourself. The mentor acts as a spotter in this metaphor. So when somebody asks me for advice, and I know just the book he should read, and he doesn’t read it, I don’t think he’s serious. I will, on occasion, distill what I consider the finer points of the book, but for the most part, a book is something you need to read yourself. Hopefully, a mentor can save you from wasting time on unproductive books.
A mentor can offer perspective. A younger man will hit a life-altering event and think it is the end of the world. Even something like being fired, or a divorce, or even an illness. A mentor has typically been through it and can tell you “It’s not that big of a deal. You will survive it. There is life on the other side. Sometimes better life.” My firing and my divorce, in perspective, were actually good things for my life. They both got me out of a really bad situation that I wouldn’t have left due to a misplaced sense of loyalty, duty, or honor. I should have quit that fucking job and divorced that woman long before I got ejected against my will. Sometimes a mentor has the perspective to see that the best way to deal with your situation is to leave it.
I firmly believe in mentoring, and make myself available when it’s beneficial for both of us. My friend thinks I should write more on this blog about advice for younger guys. Of course, it’s a crowded field, and it’s hard to stand out. Other men are doing a great job at it, like Aaron Cleary. He even runs his own consulting company “Asshole Consulting”. He was getting so many emails, he figured he would start charging for his services. And many young men are so thirsty for wisdom, they don’t mind. I think he charges $100 an hour, but most questions can be answered in under 20 minutes. I guess if I ever reach the point where people are willing to pay me $50 for a 30 minute YouTube video answering a question, I’ll do it too.
We’ll see what happens. I’ve never been able to write consistently (I have a day job and a family), but I may have some things to offer of value. I can point you to some resources I follow that explain how the world really works. A tenet of my philosophy is that you can whine and cry about how the world isn’t what you want it to be, or you can figure out how it works and interact with and manipulate it as it is.
I know a lot of men in the younger generation are “religious” ( I hate that word as it is often misapplied), but the current version of what we call “cucktianity” does not help them at all. And some of us older guys (like Cleary) are not. I am a Christian. But I don’t follow the standard theology of “cucktianity”. I consider myself to hold orthodox Christian beliefs. I do not believe Jesus was the pussified version we have been presented with by any means. He was a carpenter and not the sanding chairs type we think of. He was the type that would cut down trees and build a house. He would probably drive an F-250 diesel if he lived today. Or a Ram. (Not a Chevy). Some say the word can be translated as a stonemason. In any case, this type of work requires a really strong and tough man. The kind of many who would build his own whip and drive the moneychangers out of the temple, beating their asses the entire time because they pissed him off. And I firmly believe that in the true service of God, some people really do need their asses beaten. Just like Jesus did. Goldman Sachs, anyone?
So, I’ll see what I can do to help you guys starting out in the world from wasting your time believing lies about how the world works, how men and women are, and so on. I’m not really the guy to teach you how to get laid every night, but I went from a divorce from a bad marriage into meeting a much better woman and a happy marriage in a short period of time, so I’ve got some game. (Actually, I wonder if learning game is what hastened my divorce, as my ex-wife lost her ability to control me during that time period…)
