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I wish I was good enough for him.

BrokenBoy

戯言使い(Nonsense User)
Ok at school I see a counselor and he's probably the coolest person in school. He's smart, cultured and wise. He's an old man and from what I can tell, seen many things, gone a lot of places and all sorts of people.

If it wasn't obvious enough, I admire all of these qualities and unlike, with everyone else, I actually enjoy speaking to him. But I'm nowhere as smart and I have frequently embarrassed myself due to stupidity. I wish I was anywhere near as intelligent as he was so we can have more in depth conversations and I can understand him better.

He claims that his motivation for talking with me is that he wants to understand me. And even though I never mentioned it he found out that I wanna do the same with him. He's so smart he can figure out the intentions and motives of people just by body language and stuff.

I try to keep up with his superiority to me but I always fail. What can I do? How can I understand him better?
 
I've met people like that in my life and it's always so refreshing to meet someone with so much depth. The best thing you can do is just listen to what he has to say. He has years upon years of life experience. Nothing can replicate or fast-forward that process. And the thing is, you're only at the start of your journey. You may be more mature than your peers, but you're still young. By learning and listening to others along the way, you will become like your counsellor by the time you reach his age. Time and putting lessons learned into practice count for a lot and you still have so many years ahead of you.

Don't try to be like him at your stage, because in some sense, it's not possible. You're just not there yet -age wise-. But you can show him your own depth by taking what he has to say on board and he will see and appreciate that. There is no reason to feel embarrassed because he doesn't see the situation that way. It's his role to guide and help you and mistakes and misunderstandings are a normal part of life. It's what you do with those that counts.

I don't know how old he is, but trust me, in his own life, I'm sure he feels just as embarrassed at certain things he does. It's a matter of perspective and life stage. Being an adult doesn't make those things go away, in some sense I still feel like I'm your age just stumbling through life - but I do have some years of experience behind me that give me better understanding than I had when I was a teenager.

So take his presence as a gift of sorts, he is a wealth of knowledge that you can explore, to inspire you to become someone like him in the future and hopefully inspire others along the way.
 
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Please dont compare yourself with him like whether you are good enough to talk with him. The relationship is such that he has more training and experience than you. This is fine. He can offer you assistance which is what he does.
Dont try to be what you arent in an effort to be equal with him, because he has reached his level of wisdom because of many years of life.
You are good enough just as you are.
 
You can understand him better by listening and not comparing yourself to him. There is no way you can reach his level of knowledge and experience without living out your life and reaching that same stage with time. And really that's exactly why he is there, to help you understand things you would struggle to figure out yourself at this point.

Also keep in mind that he's your school counselor, not your friend. If your hope is to understand him on a more personal level, give that up right now, that is not what he is there for.
 
You look up so much to this person that this is restricting the way you see the world - thinking you got to be an certain thing to have personal worth, etc. In effect, you're in a box. A box is any uncomfortable situation that restricts an individual’s freedom. And the Box Trap is the assumption that the cost of getting out of a bad situation is too great to consider. There is always a way out of situations.

Take a few minutes away from everything else. Find a comfortable chair in a quiet room where you can consider the problem without interruption.

If you're interested in talking to them without feeling anxious, for example, imagine yourself going through the necessary conversation. Construct an imaginary dialogue with the other people involved. Don’t skip over it; mentally live through every word spoken by each person. As you do, try to think of unexpected things that might come up. Try to foresee the side of this person’s character that hasn’t been shown to you before. What if they get mad? What if they start to cry? What if they become abusive? Go through the entire experience in your mind. If it’s the least bit painful, go through it a second time. When you do, it should be less painful. Keep doing this — as many times as are necessary until you can go through the whole thing mentally without it bothering you.

With this, you will have identified clearly the three elements of your situation: (1) what you’re paying by remaining where you are; (2) what it would cost you to get out; and (3) what you could do once you’re out. As long as the situation is just a hazy problem with no solution, it can always seem easier to let things continue unchanged — as uncomfortable as it may be. But when you recognize what it’s costing you to stay in the box and what you could do if you were out of it, you gain new incentive to do something about it.

As always, it’s important to concentrate on the direct alternatives. In any situation, ask yourself: Is this what I want for myself? Is being ineffectually after this person all you can have? If so, why insist? There are millions of people out there in the world; you have a lot more to choose from than just what you see in front of you now.
 

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