A Reflection for National Mentoring Month
Every January, while the world is busy making resolutions it may or may not keep, something quieter and more durable unfolds in the background: National Mentoring Month . It’s a month dedicated not to reinvention, but to relationship — to the slow, steady work of showing up for another human being. Mentoring rarely looks glamorous. It’s not a movie montage of breakthroughs and tidy life lessons. More often, it’s a series of small, ordinary choices: listening when you’re tired, asking one more question, offering a story from your own life that you hope lands gently. It’s the kind of work that doesn’t trend, but it transforms. What I love about National Mentoring Month is that it doesn’t pretend mentoring is effortless. Instead, it honors the people who keep doing it anyway — the teachers, coaches, neighbors, aunties, uncles, faith leaders, coworkers, and community elders who invest in someone else’s becoming. It also reminds us that mentoring isn’t a one-directional act of charity. It’s...