"Choose yourself a mentor;Acquire yourself a friend;

acts of kindness, Pirkei Avot: “Choose yourself a mentor;

Acquire yourself a friend;

And make it your habit to judge every person favorably.

�Yehoshua ben Perachia”

The first two lines are sensible and easy to do, or one would hope. One can never have too many friends. It is always good to have people you can trust, who you can share your hopes/dreams/fears with.

Community is important, we are communal creatures.

A mentor is a good idea as well. Very few of us try activities in which no one else has ever engaged in. So it makes sense to try and find a trustworthy person who can share their experiences with you and hopefully assist you in avoiding some of the pitfalls that can hit you.

The final component is really tough. It is just hard not to judge people. We are consistently forced to evaluate people and it is not easy to just ignore your first impressions.