A Tragic Life Lessons Story Courtesy My First Mentor in Life!

An Insightful Series of Life Lessons That My Life Provided As I Lived Understanding Its Psychology and Philosophy Improving My Mental Health in The Process.

Jun 28, 2026

LIFE LESSON STORIES SERIES

We Need to Reject Our Mentors If and When They Start Dominating Us

A Tragic Life Lessons Story Courtesy My First Mentor in Life! Image AI generated.

By age 26, I had decided to make a change of career in my life. Along with being a scientist, I had some extra skills at my behest including various different soft skills. I planned to train corporate and open groups in soft skills as a freelancer. Such offerings were much in demand, and I could deal with them very easily.

Job Vs Freelancing

The reasons for my decision were more than one. First of all, I wasn’t happy with the quality of research we were made to do as scientists. Secondly, I had started getting suffocated in the binding that a job ties everyone with. You turn a slave to your employer whoever that employer is.

But as a freelancer you become a free soul altogether. You get the freedom to choose your own pace whenever you want. You are not even tied to a single place to work from. You could go to any place on earth and advertise your training workshop. You yourself become the brand of your own freelance business. And that’s all you need to do along with really training the groups!

That was what I did and took a bold step to resign from my luxurious job. And that’s what I have been doing to date since then. Anyway, when I started it, I headed to my hometown the very first.

My First Mentor in Life

One of my old friends there suggested me to visit someone who had become the talk of the town recently. As he told me his whereabouts, I discovered his younger brother had been my class fellow in school. Later his younger sister who was a lecturer in a degree college had also become a very close friend of mine.

Anyway, I went to his place and introduced myself. His name was Rahul Negi and he had recently returned from Kenya where he was the principal in a college. He was 38 years old, and I got impressed with his knowledge in the very first meeting. Soon we became best friends, in fact not friends, rather he became my first mentor in life. We did many projects in the town together that made us quite popular over there.

But there was one thing about his personality that always intrigued me. Whenever I asked him about his younger brother, he always told everything in detail about him. But when I asked about his younger sister who had been my very close friend, he always evaded the question. By that time, she had already got married.

My Mentor Introduces Me To His Friend And His Daughter

Anyway, he once got me introduced to one of his friends who we met along with his daughter walking on the road. They were not from the town but had come from the valley below.

After a few days I was walking alone on the bus route outside the town. As a bus crossed my way from the opposite side, I heard a female voice shouting ‘hello’ from within. I looked back as the bus had moved a little distance by then and found a girl waving at me. I couldn’t recall if I ever knew that girl. I wasn’t also quite sure if it was I alone or someone else she was waving at. Hence, I didn’t wave back and went my way further.

Next week, I again heard a voice shouting ‘hello’ from the other side of the road. As I looked up, I saw a girl pointing toward me. Again, I couldn’t make it sure if it was I alone or someone else she was pointing toward. Hence, I started checking my left, right and back if there could be anyone else who she might be pointing toward.

“Hey, I am talking to you,” she said aloud as she crossed the road and came near me.

“Do we know each other?” I was intrigued as her tone voiced like she already knew me well.

“I waved from the bus last week and you didn’t wave back at me,” she complained.

“Have we met before?” I was still confused.

“Have you forgotten? We got introduced by Rahul Negi the other day. I am Shivani Bisht, Dev Bisht’s daughter,” she reminded me.

Shivani Takes Me To Task Lovingly

“Oh, I am really sorry. I am not very good at keeping names and faces in mind,” I apologized.

“That happens only when they are not important to you,” she smiled.

“Yes, name and faces have never been very important to me. What interests me is the personality,” I admitted.

“Or maybe my name and face aren’t even worth remembering,” she teased me.

“No, both your name and face are so beautiful! How can one forget them?” I tried to undo my folly.

“And still you did! No one else has ever done it in my life,” she went a little boastful of her beauty. In fact, she was really exceptionally beautiful.

“The fault is mine,” I again apologized.

“No, I am wondering what a kind of man you are,” she really sounded like wondering.

“Weird!” I gave a concrete word to her vague wonder.

“Yes, of course; but very uniquely so!” she was still looking at my face with a sense of wonder.

We took leave of each other. While we were going our ways, she again called me back from behind.

As I turned back, I heard her saying,” I would like to meet you again.”

“I too certainly would,” I said before I left.

Later it came to my mind how we would meet as we didn’t have each other’s whereabouts. But it was too late by then. Those were not the days of mobile phones and social media yet.

After a few months, I went down to the valley to join a theater group there. And to my utter surprise, Shivani was also a member of the same group.

I specialized as a writer director in theater. Within a year, situations took a dramatic turn which ended up in an affair between the two of us while we were rehearsing together for a new play. That was a weird turn of events I will be writing down in one of my next memoirs further. But when her father came to know about our affair, he raised an objection and complained to Rahul, my mentor.

The Tragic Life Lessons Story Starts Unfolding Itself

Rahul came down to the valley and met me at the venue of rehearsal. He took me away and accused me of having given him a bad name in the eyes of his friend.

“How does it give YOU a bad name?” I curiously asked.

“It’s because I had got you introduced to them the very first,” he replied.

“But she would anyway have been there in the play even if you hadn’t introduced us. We would still have met and might have fallen in love with each other,” I gave my logic.

“Don’t argue with me. It wouldn’t have been a blot on my face then. What you have done is morally wrong,” his tone had gone bitter by then.

“I don’t understand how and why falling in love can ever be morally wrong,” said I, innocently.

“You have taken an undue advantage of my introducing you to them,” he still stuck to his point.

Suddenly, it struck to me why he had always evaded my questions about his younger sister. I immediately realized that despite his intellectual superiority, he was a patriarch in the deepest traits of his personality, emotionally.

“I considered you my mentor to date, but not anymore. You or anyone else has no right to dominate me for what I do or what I don’t in my life. And since you, my mentor, have done so, I reject you as my mentor with immediate effect. Goodbye!”

I shook hands with him and went back to my rehearsal.

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