Mentorship as a Process
This quote from Jason Fried has been hovering in my unconscious, thanks to a few dramatic events over the past few weeks that have transformed my relationship with my mentors.
It is uncanny how life pushes you to re-evaluate your own relationship with mentors while you receive serendipitous requests for mentorship. I am discovering how much I have projected an air of invincibility over my mentors and have never been able to accept the fact that they are ultimately fallible humans, withered-up autumn leaves blown this way and that in the gale force of fate.
One reason why I feel strongly committed to spending a lifetime studying Yoga is that it breaks down mentorship into a process of perception that can show you the light just a few hundred metres ahead of you.
Have you ever driven your car with that thin flickering candle of hope when you drive on forsaken roads in rural villages at night?
You are snuggled by darkness everywhere and you only have a few hundred meters of light in front of you. No matter how much you try hard to find external sources of light, you discover that there is only one choice left: Surrender to the flickering glimpse of light available with you and move on.
Over the past few weeks, I have come across two wise experts with more grey hair than mine cynically pronouncing that there is no future for the youth in Indian agriculture and my naive hopes of optimism are completely unfounded.
Call it the occupational hazard of being an agritech analyst.
It is in such moments of utter despair that you start to discover a precious glimpse of wisdom that Yoga has been emphasizing for a long time: Optimism is not a state to be discovered in response to how the world is unfolding. It is an inner aasan (stance) that you discover within, in order to face the world as is.