Everybody needs - and hopefully has - friends and mentors in their lives. I know I sure do. And there are several people in mine who tick both those boxes. Here today, I want to talk, impartially and just for myself, about a quandary they (all inadvertently) have been giving me.
I look up to them all, because of both their conduct and their wisdom. This obviously makes them people I would consult for advice on what to do about a particular matter I didn't know how to deal with. They've also made me re-examine many of my values and views which I did need to change. But where does or should one draw the line between doing that and still thinking for oneself? That's what I've been recently grappling with amongst all this. Because I do still need, not always but often, to think for myself, as everybody else needs to (and deserves the right to).
I want it to be abundantly clear that none of them have ever sought to indoctrinate me; just to guide or reprimand me when necessary. Those are often parts of a friend's job, too. But I believe I still need to strike a mental balance between listening to and absorbing what others tell me (which has made me publicly experience cognitive dissonance, the concept of which one of these friends re-familiarised me with), and maintaining my own opinions; all my family and friends would themselves want me to do the latter regardless.
Writing this post has been tougher than I expected, because of my overthinking habit, but I felt if I didn't express this anywhere, it would all eventually come out at an inappropriate place and time. And this issue will take me awhile to resolve, but I feel better for having discussed it here now.
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