While some mentors walk beside us, others leave notes in the margins of our lives. Mr. Abraham Lincoln left his in history books. That’s where I first met him.
I was a teenager when I discovered his words in a borrowed book. His face was familiar—every schoolchild had seen the beard, the hat, the solemn eyes. But it was the voice behind those eyes that startled me: calm, honest, unafraid to carry pain.
Lincoln spoke like a man who had lost more than he won, yet never stopped believing in people. He made failure feel less shameful, struggle less lonely. For me, he became a guiding light. A mentor.
Source: Wikipedia
Lessons From a Man Who Never Knew My Name
I didn’t read Lincoln as one studies a textbook. I read him as you listen to someone who knows heartbreak and hope. His words offered presence. For a young man with too many questions and too little clarity, that was enough.
His life was no straight line. He failed in business, lost elections, buried children, and led a nation torn apart. Yet his principle endures: you can be kind and strong at once. He didn’t shout to be heard or claw for power. He carried conviction—and compassion.
That changed me.
Why Lincoln Mattered to a Boy in a Different Century
Many believe mentors must speak to you directly. Lincoln never did. Yet he modeled something greater: a life of service, guided by conscience. He was not perfect, and wrestled with contradictions. He grew into his beliefs about freedom and equality. That honesty made him human. That humanity made him believable.
I remember his Second Inaugural Address. One line I underlined again and again:
“With malice toward none, with charity for all…”
Written in war, those words healed like peace. They became my compass, reminding me that strength lies not in holding grudges, but in letting them go.
Becoming the Kind of Man Lincoln Believed In
Whenever I mentor someone now, I hear his steadiness—his belief in human potential.
He once wrote to a young cadet, urging him to endure and adhere to purpose with the promise of fulfillment. I try to echo that. Sometimes it means listening without distraction. Sometimes it means guiding someone through a decision while letting them find the answer.
Mentorship, I’ve learned, empowers. It does not command.
The Women Who Deserved Better
Lincoln lived in a time when women’s voices were silenced. He didn’t correct that injustice, but he laid a moral foundation others could build on. That’s why mentoring young women matters deeply to me. It isn’t charity—it’s equity.
I recall a letter he wrote to a mother who had lost five sons in war. He wrote plainly, almost gently, praying that the country might be “worthy of their loss.”
Worthy. That word has never left me.
Lincoln taught me to ask: Am I being worthy? At this moment? Of this responsibility? Of someone else’s trust? That question guides me more than any strategy.
The Quiet Power of Humility
Of all his traits, humility may have been Lincoln’s greatest. He never thought himself destined for greatness, only responsible for it. Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote that he “constantly acknowledged his errors and learned from his mistakes.”
I’ve tried to carry that humility into every mentorship. It is always them before me. Lincoln never sought to be a hero. He sought to be useful. That is the value I live by.
When someone tells me they found clarity, earned the job, or simply felt seen—that is enough. That is success. That is legacy.
Source: uis.edu
What Would Lincoln Say Today?
Were he alive, he would be patient, but his convictions are loud. He would speak plainly, listen deeply, and urge us to mentor boldly. He would notice pay gaps, racial bias, and power hoarded in the same rooms. He would ask: “What are you doing about it?” Not as an accusation, but as an invitation.
Mentoring is my answer. My way of saying I believe in someone’s future more than their past—just as Lincoln believed in a future better than the present he inherited.
Why He Still Matters
Lincoln guided a nation, but also guided me—from afar, through history, through his own fallibility. He taught me legacy is not about being remembered, but about being useful when the world needs you.
The Union’s survival, democracy’s validation, and the abolition of slavery remain his great achievements, all born of his steady leadership in crisis.
When I mentor someone, I try to offer what he offered me: calm in chaos. A voice that says, You’re not alone. You matter. Keep going.
Final Words I Still Carry
On my desk sits a quote, faded but enduring: “We can complain because the rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because the thorn bushes have roses.”
It reminds me progress is not about speed, but direction. Purpose. The will to keep walking uphill. Lincoln walked that road for others. Now, I walk it for those who come after me. We never met, but he mentors me all the same. And in some quiet, humble way, I hope I am passing it on.
