From our earliest age we have been
taught by our parents, family, and others older and wiser than we. Teaching comes naturally to parents, and
children absorb it all. They take in the
technical content like language, behavior, socialization, and cultural norms
with Mother’s Milk, and we grow up “just knowing” so many things we learn at
this very young age. And how I am
enjoying the process from the perspective of being a grandparent with the
little ones around all the time.
Something happens in our adolescent
years, however. Somewhere in that morass
of hormones and intellectual development their creeps in a sense of self, an awareness of Life As A Journey and our
place within that journey. And the idea
that decisions made today may and probably will have consequences for a
lifetime.
The “What do you want to be when you
grow up?” Question takes on added significance. How do we know what we want to be? How do we know whom we want to be? What does it mean to be a Something, a named stereotypic category
of a person that may liberate or stigmatize us the rest of our lives? Will that Something fit with our self-perception and personal
expectations? Will picking that Something make me happy? Questions like this make Teens a bit anxious,
even a bit crazy.
The Existentialists have a phrase that
I like in this context: Become Who You Are. Combining the ideas of Becoming as the imperfect physical world and Being as the perfection of Plato’s Forms, it speaks to the idea
that, at our core, we are each someone with unique qualities of Soul, of
an essential and personal Self. Perhaps this is the Personal Truth that
underlies our search for the divine. A life spent in awareness of the world of Becoming is a life spent seeking the
perfection of Being.
The “What do you want to be” question
seems to be asking, “Who will you become”, or more fundamentally, “Who are you, really?” Asking a person who is still figuring things
out about just who they are in their core, to make a decision about a life
direction is quite unfair. People spend
a lifetime trying to answer that one!
Many people here in this room right now might count themselves among
those who are still seeking to know who they are at their core!
We look to our parents as the first Role Models after whom we can fashion
our lives, if the situation is right.
Nature vs. Nurture comes into play here, of course, and there is certainly
a strong pull of genetics in any decision we may make, but our Mother’s and
Father’s personalities, sense of themselves, and lifestyles complete with
challenges and successes will have a strong and profound effect. It can be positive, and it can be
negative. Who hasn’t said, even if
privately to themselves, “I’m never going to do what my Father did.” Or
something similar? Still, there is no
denying the genetics of family, and the powerful effects they have on our
lives.
But let’s consider the idea of Role
Models. Language, speech, dress, daily
life, etiquette, empathy, compassion, responsibility, boundaries both personal
and social, and a host of other explicit and implied behavioral characteristics
are learned by example, by watching others and mimicking them as Role
Models. It can’t be helped, and it is a
part of all of us. This can be what we
call Normative Behavior, or seeking the Norm.
You might also think of this as being our process of Fitting In, and it
may comprise some large percentage of our concepts of Self. Maybe not so much the unique parts, but the
basic, how do I get along with others parts.
Aside:
I recently read about studies made of the way people interact in social
settings. The studies were by university
sociologists who were trying to understand why we do some of the odd things we
do. Have you ever noticed that people
who stand around talking will tend to all stand the same way? If one crosses their arms, others will,
too. Or put your hands in your
pockets? If you happen to think of this
while you are standing around during coffee today, try it. It works! You can get others to follow your
example.
Another example cited in the report was
the tendency for a parent to open their own mouths when feeding a baby. The baby opens its mouth to receive the spoon
of creamed carrots, and then the parent closes their mouth to encourage the
baby to do the same thing, and it works.
This is the same mental process in another context. (Now you don’t have to feel embarrassed when
it happens to you!)
Well, the researchers were looking at
brain activity and found something they called Mirror Neurons in the brain that are the unconscious source of this
parroting activity. You mirror others
without thinking about what you are doing. It is an innate, universal characteristic of
the human brain. What does that say
about our evolutionary development, or about Crowd Think?
Are Role Models Mentors? Not necessarily, if you consider the
perspective of the mentee. A mentor
is a valued and trusted advisor, not necessarily a teacher or role model,
but someone who specifically looks out for the mentee and to whom the mentee
turns for help and support, especially in the realm of Life Coach sorts of
areas. It is this intentional sense of participation in the advising role by both
that makes the Mentor-Mentee relationship special.
As adults we may find ourselves
assigned as a Mentor or Mentee by our organization as a way to help a younger
person advance through the company structure more effectively.
In the recent movie The Intern, an
older retired executive is brought into a Dot.Com company where the average age
of the workforce might be in their 20’s.
These bright and motivated younger adults find the perspectives and
experiences of the older Intern to be life changing, and very helpful in issues
ranging from finding an apartment to finding love. While the movie is clearly a
nod to the wisdom of older people, which of course I applaud, it was also a
great look at a nurturing Mentor-Mentee relationship in action.
In adolescence a person’s circle of friends has a huge impact on
our self-esteem, our sense of place, and to some degree, the trajectory we
expect our life to take. What you expect
of yourself is, to a large degree, informed by the Group Think expectation of
the social structure around you. Motivated
and ambitious people motivate the people around them. Negative and disruptive people affect people
around them adversely. We pick our
groups perhaps subconsciously, but perhaps intentionally. With whom are you most comfortable?
Kids negotiating High School pick friends
of similar interests in education and school activities. Cliques of high achievers occur. Others are more interested in specific
activities like athletics, or band, or debate, or skipping class and driving
cars. We can all remember the day,
right? Which group were you a part of? And perhaps of more lasting importance, did
your choice of friends then affect how you have lived your life since?
In my day there was something called
Tracking, where, on the basis of a student’s performance on tests, their GPA,
and their teacher’s general impression of the potential of the student, kids
were tracked into “College Bound” or, for boys, what might be called “Vocational”
areas. For girls the alternative might
have been called Home Ec, or some variant. – Not very politically correct these days,
right? - Once the track was set, then a defined
school curriculum was expected of the student, with little room for
variation. I hope the track chosen for
you was the one you felt was right for you.
It was hard to change, and it set in place a set of expectations for
you, and it told others around you something about who you were.
But my point here is aptitude and
attitude. This is a difficult time
for many kids at ages 14 to 18 or so, and knowing what you want for yourself at
that stage is really challenging, but we all had a sense of ability, and where
we fit in the overall Big Picture. Like
lining up from tallest to shortest, we had a sense where we would end up in
line if we used smartest to dumbest as the criterion, or maybe fastest to
slowest on the cross country track.
Everything was a competition, a 1-on-1 comparison, and ranking. This helped us know where we stood, informed
our self-expectation, and helped us set our personal bar.
Layered on top of this is what I will
call Raging Hormones. I don’t
think I need to say much about this, other than hormones come in their own
sweet time, and can be a blessing or a curse.
It is all a matter of your perspective, and how you handle it.
My favorite metaphor for kids in
this age is that they are in the Pupae Stage. You can see it through dress, the way they
wear their hair, language, interaction with peers and parents, interests, and
angst. On the other side of the growing
up process lays Adulthood, responsibility, commitment to some sort of Path or
other, and Getting on the Treadmill of life.
For the young adults at this cross-road of life this Adult Stuff
is all in the future, a bit out of sight, and something not to be welcomed, but
rather to be delayed as long as possible.
At least for most.
So let’s get back to the idea of a
Mentor, and how this might all fit together.
Accepting that some sort of life path will require at least a minimal
commitment to an activity that will allow a person to live, such as to make
money and have a cool cell phone, how is a person to choose?
Adults with some sense of the journey
of life have learned that the best thing we can choose to do is something
that we love. Follow your
passion. While this might be easy to
say, it can be bewildering. What if the
thing you love isn’t something you know how to make money doing? How is that supposed to work? This is where a Mentor can help out. Mentors
know things. Mentors have that Long
View of Life where they can help advise you on how best to take your talents to
the market and make something positive out of them. And often what they suggest is not something
you might have thought of yourself.
One of the most non-intuitive things a
Mentor might tell you is, You will make exactly as much money in life as you
expect to make. Since making money
is at the root of a great deal of the angst we all feel about our place in
life, this statement might sound a bit crazy.
What if I want to make a bazillion dollars? You mean I can do that? Yes, a Mentor will tell you, but you must
dedicate yourself to the task, chart a path to your destination, work
diligently at the task without hesitation, and follow that path without
fail. Forget anything else.
I like the story about the guy who used
Craig’s List and started with almost nothing - a paper clip – and by trading
and negotiating over a period of months ended up with a house worth many
thousands of dollars. You can take a
very meager beginning and make it into anything you want. You just need to want it bad enough to give
up everything else to get it. – Sounds
like the American Dream, doesn’t it?
Most of us have an Aristotelian Golden
Mean sort of goal for money in our lives.
This means we desire a certain amount of money where we have enough to
do what we need to do without working all the time to earn it. But if you
want it all, that path is open. There
are plenty of examples in modern culture: Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerburg, Jeff
Bezos.
The complimentary view is the Work or
Play paradox. Do you work to live, or
live to work? I think the answer to
that conundrum changes depending on the stage you are in life. Certainly sacrifices for work are more common
for younger workers trying to find their place or to make their mark, and less
common for established workers who don’t need the aggravation or upset a
sacrifice might entail.
Life is a journey, not a destination.
We all live day to day. We make
plans for the future and certainly save for that eventual rainy day, but we
have to make ends meet today, too.
Keeping that sense of balance takes years of trial and error for all of
us. Mentoring can help guide expectations,
keep steps from being missed, and make the process of selection much more
assured.
And remember, no battle plan
survives the first contact with the enemy.
We all have to be flexible and roll with life’s punches. Mentoring can really help when things seem to
be falling apart!
In the context of the Fellowship we see
informal mentoring occurring as we support one another in our independent searches for Truth and
Meaning. Our spiritual paths are an
innate part of who we are, and our need to search for our personal place in the
grand scheme of life. A minister acts as
a teacher and role model for most, and can become a personal mentor for people
who seek out that more personal, specific relationship.
Informal and formal mentorship may also
occur in the special groups we participate in here, like the Men’s and Women’s
Groups, Circle Suppers, Big Questions and Food for Thought. There are many ways in which we can meet and
interact with each other in ways that are more than just conversations, but
also avenues to personal growth and development. What
would happen if you asked someone you trusted and respected to help you with an
issue that concerns you? Would the act
of asking for help put you in a Mentor-Mentee relationship?
We live in this intentional community in part to associate with others that
share our values and aspirations, our perspectives on life, and what it means
to be spiritual. But I think in another
sense we seek associations with people to whom we can look up and admire, to learn from, and who may be able to learn
something from each of us. We all
have our gifts that we can share, and when we share them with people in our
community we add our presence and a quality of life that enriches us all.
Namaste