Mentorship for a Better Future

If anyone is expecting an apology after we doubled down on the last two controversial pieces, you came to the wrong place. We're not going to apologize for encouraging people to cut the users and abusers out of their lives, we're not sorry for encouraging healthy life decisions. We're not going to apologize for telling people that suicide shouldn't be viewed through rose-colored lenses. It's destructive and painful and it creates more problems than it solves. What we are going to do is offer a solution that hasn't quite hit it's stride yet, but we think it has tons of potential. Mentorship.When we say it hasn't quite hit its stride, we mean that it's not as...prevalent. There are some non-profits and other organizations that utilize this tool, but not many do, and truthfully it's kind of a hard sell because you have to trust that someone else truly, altruistically wants you to succeed.A mentor is different from a parent, a teacher, or a boss. With a mentor, their advice comes with no conditions. You won't be punished by them for not taking their advice, you're not taking their test, you aren't beholden to them for a paycheck. And even though a mentor can be any one of those people in your life, when they put on their "mentoring hat" those other roles fade away.A mentor should be open to your ideas, your perspectives, and your problems and at the end of the day have your best interest at heart. Keywords there are "Should be".It's been said that a bad man learns from no one, a good man from his mistakes, and a great man from the mistakes of others. A mentor exists so you can be great men and women.They can offer you an unseen perspective, give you just the right amount of pushback on your idea so that you really have to flush it out, make known the questions that you had no idea you should be asking, encourage you when your "righteous" crusade hits hard times. A mentor isn't a safety net though. If you fall, you'll still bear the consequences of your actions. But a mentor will be there to help you STAND ON YOUR OWN again, offer a better way forward, or encourage you to keep along the path you were on.Obviously, like us, they are human and fallible, so it's not a perfect solution. Those rarely exist in life as we all know, but finding a solid mentor and allowing them to invest in your life and vice versa is probably one of the greatest ways to get out of whatever hole you find yourself in.Plain and simple, as cliche and dumb as this sounds, a mentor is there to help you be the best you with no strings attached.