Don’t blindly follow anyone

You can’t always rely on others to take you to your destination.

Photo by Ruben Valenzuela on Unsplash

When I was a teacher, aside from my regular teaching duties, I also had something called a homeroom.

A homeroom is a classroom that a group of students are assigned to.

The students gather in their homeroom at the start of each school day to hear the morning announcements. They listen to prayers and devotions, and they have their attendance checked.

Since I had a homeroom, I needed to be at school by 8 a.m.

However, on this day, I was running late. It was already 7:50 a.m. when I left my home, and I lived about 15 minutes away. Let me add that I had just recently started living in this area.

I disliked being late (for anything) and so I started to panic. I feared that I would not make it to school on time.

While driving and worrying about how late I was going to be, I spotted a student, Kyle (not his real name), and his mother in a car ahead of me.

Kyle was in my homeroom and was heading to school as well. I knew this because he had on his uniform. Obviously, he was running late too.

I decided to follow them.

I was aware that Kyle and his family had lived in the area for some time. So, my thinking was that Kyle’s mother knew all the shortcuts to get to school.

I smiled at my good fortune.

I tailed them, and every turn they made I made it too.

I felt like I had won the lottery.

I kept following behind them until they eventually drove into the driveway of a house.

A regular, normal, residential house… not school.

Photo by Gláuber Sampaio on Unsplash

I was lost

I was so embarrassed that I drove past the house that they had stopped and pulled over, making sure I was out of sight.

From the distance, I watched them enter the house when the door opened.

And if the situation wasn’t bad enough, I had no clear idea where I was.

I was completely lost.

In my quest to stay close to their car, I had not paid attention to exactly where I was going.

For the first time since I started following them, I paused to think about my situation.

I realized that I had 3 options:

1. I could discreetly wait for them to emerge from the house and follow them again.

2. I could knock on the door, explain the situation to them, and ask for help to find my way.

3. I could try to find the way back to where I needed to be by myself.

For all I know, they could be inside that house for hours. I would then be in a worse situation if I wasted time waiting on them to come out. So, I decided against option 1.

Embarrassment made me decide against option 2.

I decided to go with option 3. That is, figure out where I was and how to get to where I needed to be.

I was irritated and frustrated.

As you can imagine, I was now even more late for school.

That day, I made a fool of myself.

I had blindly followed someone, and I did not know where they were going.

Photo by Venti Views on Unsplash

Don’t follow anyone blindly

I’m not saying that you cannot use guides or mentors. In fact, they can be invaluable on your journey.

But don’t follow anyone blindly. Pay attention and see if where they are taking you is where you also want to go.

When you blindly follow someone, you run the risk of ending up at their destination, not yours.

“If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That’s why it’s your path.” — Joseph Campbell

---

What would you have done if you were in my situation? Let me know in the comments. 😊

---

© Jacquline Dacres 2023. All Rights Reserved

You can follow me on:

Twitter and LinkedIn where I share my ideas on personal development and my writing journey.