The Signpost

How Do We Recognize the Right One?

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A signpost does not expect anyone to follow its direction. It takes no offence when someone chooses another path. It simply points the way.

There is a subtlety I would like to add to this reflection.

Like a signpost, a teacher can point towards a path, share experience, and even warn of the consequences of certain choices. But a teacher cannot walk that path for someone else. Nor should they expect their guidance to be followed.

The moment a teacher begins to need someone to follow their particular path, they cease to be a signpost. They become someone who wants to decide the course of another person's journey.

And even the most beautiful path, when imposed upon someone, can become a prison.

Sometimes a person chooses a path we ourselves decided long ago was the wrong one. We can see the bends ahead. We remember the falls. We know the price of our own experiences.

We want to spare them the suffering. To stop them, turn them back, persuade them.

But in that moment, are we truly caring for their journey?

Or are we trying to protect ourselves from the helplessness we feel as we watch them make their choice?

It is a question worth asking ourselves with courage and kindness.

Even care, love, and the desire to see someone grow can quietly turn into a need for control.

Another person's freedom begins where our expectations of their choices end. And it is precisely there that we face a genuine test: can we respect their right to their own path, even when it leads somewhere we would never choose to go?

This does not mean indifference. A signpost need not remain silent when it sees danger. It can offer a warning. It can point towards other possibilities. It can remain present when someone returns from their journey tired, disappointed, or wounded.

But it does not present them with a bill for ignoring its advice.

It does not say, “I told you so.”

It has no need to be right.

And this is where I see the essence of being a teacher.

I see a teacher's worth not in the number of people who follow them.

Nor in the certainty with which they speak.

Not even in the wisdom of their words.

But in how much freedom they leave to the person they are speaking with.

There is another paradox here.

A teacher who truly helps us find our own way must be ready for the moment when we no longer need them. Not because they have ceased to be valuable, but because we have learned to see through our own eyes.

Their presence does not disappear. It remains within us as an experience, not a dependency.

And what about us?

Can we be such signposts for our children, our partners, our friends, our students?

Can we love without directing?

Help without expecting gratitude?

Share wisdom without needing it to be affirmed?

And finally, can we recognize the moment when, out of concern for another person, we begin to build the path we ourselves would like them to walk?

So pause for a moment.

Look at your life from where you stand.

For a moment, set aside everything you think you know about others.

Right now, there is only you and your path.

Remember the paths you have chosen. Those you followed because others led the way. And those you turned away from, even though your heart was telling you to keep going.

And now ask yourself:

Is the path you are walking today truly your own?