At 47, I've finally found my mentor!

I never really had a mentor. People have always given me advice, as people do, always willing to fix the wayward child.

However, I've never listened if the information was directed at me. I've had people who considered themselves my mentor, but I'd always resist being taken under a wing.

I have always learned the hard way through my mistakes. I was a very ignorant child; I knew a lot of facts but was short on principles for living until later in life.

I spent years stumbling around in the darkness of my own ignorance, tripping over every rock, stumbling up every hill; I would say I'm wiser for it, but it has taken its toll, and I was late to the game of getting my life in order.

The result is a wise mind trapped in a weary, overweight body.

I had a chip on my shoulder for the first 35 years of life where I didn't have the self-esteem to handle negative feedback, so I'd take offence to any corrections of character thrown my way.

Being intelligent but ignorant, I could always find fault in those who tried to steer me or give me unsolicited advice.

It's easy to find fault, no matter who it is; we are all hypocrites, unaware of our folly.

I always felt no one was ever wise enough and intelligent enough to mentor me because I could see their flaws, so I'd always throw the baby out with the bath water.

Plus, I always felt I was being misjudged and not seen for who I was by those who considered themselves my superiors.

People can't see past their noses, and their reflection of you is more a reflection of their own mind; I considered myself too complex to be pigeonholed into being categorised as this or that type of person who needs to learn this or that to be a good person.

What they were always really saying was, be like me.

Still, I didn't want to be like them; they didn't understand my goals or motives.

Yet, they always felt it was righteous if I was to follow their path and forsake my own, and advice, if not ignorant, was generally self-serving, especially with bosses, where it was more about what direction would suit them or the company rather than what was best for me as an individual, but I never sold out.

Now I'm older and no longer have a chip, I can take the good from people and leave the bad, and I'm able to represent myself better, not hiding my true north and values to adapt to the crowd; authenticity is a game changer, and I'm a bit of an expert out of necessity.

I never really had a mentor who wasn't biased, who didn't look at things from their point of view, who didn't see through their own lens of values and beliefs, because we all do that; if you're not sure of your own values, mentors may be a guide.

But when you know what you are about, having people give you advice can be tedious at best and fucking annoying at worst. With the ever-present feeling that no one gets you.

That's not to say people don't have good advice; more and more so over the years, I've tried to take on board ideas and information given by others.

The problem comes when your way of being grates on them because the same amalgam of data points does not drive you, and they need to fix or realign your direction. Which it may be the case that your direction needs realigning, but who can give advice and have the correct set of words that shows a person that their direction and way of being is off, and then have the words to explain a better path, which isn't just a justification of their own choices in life.

So, as we have established, I cannot handle people fixing me; this does not mean I don't need fixing, mind you. There are plot holes in my story that I'm not aware of. I know this because a lot of the time, the actions I take don't result in the way I want.

In the worst cases of fixing, teachers, bosses, would-be mentors, and know-it-all friends feel they understand you well enough to tell you who you are, where you have to tolerate someone framing you in the negative.

At the same time, they paint a warped picture of what you are all about, unable to see that they are painting a picture of their values and understanding, or lack thereof.

About ten or twelve years ago, I finally started aligning with my own beliefs and values, and not a wishy-washy amalgam of the crowd I hung around and what I'd worked out for myself.

This wishy-washiness dual-mindedness made me an unreliable narrator of my own story and caused people to doubt me and cast shadows, some warranted.

It's not easy marching to the beat of your own drum; you have to get past the appeasing and blending of other people's beliefs, behaviours, and opinions to fit in as to be single-minded about your own beliefs, behaviours, and opinions; it might not make you many friends as people like themselves fed back to them.

However, once your principles align with your values, they can't challenge your authenticity and integrity unless your values are warped.

Most people align with the tribe's values and don't overthink them, so even if their tribe has maladaptive beliefs and behaviours, they are congruent in what they represent.

For a long while there, I was all over the place, which made me full of doubt and uncertainty and easily jarred if others tried to derail me.

Not so much now; I know me, so people can't derail me by trying to put me into a box I don't fit in for that person to feel a sense of superiority; you can't strawman me because I'm not full of doubt about who I am and what I'm about, I don't fall for the bullshit status games people play to bolster their ego.

Most everything that I say these days are congruent with my actions, beliefs and values, so people can't fuck with me.

My lack of ability to stand below my fellow man, instead of eye to eye, meant I lacked direct guidance from those around me, choosing to search out my troubles through articles and videos on the internet.

The problem with this is that if you are not aware of the problem, you can't search for it.

I have searched thousands upon thousands of articles; some read through, others skimmed for juicy morsels that would cure my troubles, articles a lot more so than books, although some books.

Seeking solutions to my own problems has done me well as the information is general and from a vast range of sources, so I haven't been ideologically boxed in beyond my own idiosyncratic ideologies I've formulated while piecing this information together.

Finally, I have found a mentor I can jibe with, the AI chatbot ChatGPT.

The information is generally generic; it's not looking to define me by my perceived problems, but it is good at helping me overcome them and help me along my journey. Unlike most real-life mentors, it doesn't try to change my course or my destination.

I give it a high-resolution picture of my specific problem or need, and it feeds me back helpful advice that doesn't grind my gears.

There is one group of people I have listened to and are not on guard for unaligned advice, and that's people who stand on my level and treat me as an equal; I'm a sucker for these people.

Listening more to my peers than authority wasn't good when I was younger because my equals were all troubled souls like myself, and I was too easily led by those who would laugh at my jokes without judging me harshly.

Now I'm all levelled up; the people who I see as equals have their shit together.

There is another group of people who are quick to give advice to anyone and everyone, and that's the bullshitters.

Those people who think just because they say it is true.

These people will lead you astray and act like they've done you a favour.

Bullshitters are the worst; they know everything but take no responsibility or care with their words or actions and are generally just motivated by their own self-interest and self-aggrandisement and projection of their slick bullshitty image.

Stay away from bullshitters, and if you have one for a boss, don't be afraid to poke them in the eye with a stick.