How Giving Directions Reveals Your Character

I was gassing up my rental car at a station in Concord, Massachusetts, and noticed an older lady who looked a bit confused as she read the directions someone had given her.

She asked me if I knew the area. I said I knew it somewhat. I asked where she was heading. She showed me the brochure–for a retirement community in Westborough, Massachusetts, and directions someone had given her. It was clear she didn’t have a cellphone or GPS. I did.

So I grabbed my cellphone from the car and typed in her destination. I could give her step-by-step directions and show her exactly where she was going on Google Maps. I reassured her that it was a direct route and she would be there in no time.

She thanked me profusely and walked back to her car. I finished fueling mine and drove off, heading in the same direction the lady would be going.

It was a week after I had marked my (late) mom’s May 26 birthday and, of course, Mother’s Day earlier in May. Mom has been on my mind even more than usual since she died in October 2019.

My eyes teared up, thinking about Mom and this lady asking for my help. Helping her, reassuring her, made me feel like I was helping my own mom–or someone else’s mom. I empathized with her situation, recognizing how frightened and vulnerable she probably felt in an unfamiliar place, facing the prospect of driving on the busy highway she would have to take to reach her destination.

I felt a deep sense of gratitude that I was able to be helpful and ease this lady’s fears. I also felt strongly aware that this brief, ordinary interaction between two strangers had deeper significance for me. It made me reflect on the kind of man I aspire to be and my values.

All I have learned over the years about resilience and wisdom has brought me to these kinds of moments when what I claim to believe and value is tested in how I choose to handle a situation. Do I brush someone aside, asserting my own desire to be on my way? Or do I generously and patiently lend my time, incline my ear, or share my knowledge of a place to help someone who doesn’t know it?

What does this have to do with resilience and wisdom? Everything, really. Both resilience and wisdom increase by choosing to be resilient and become wise through your life experiences, especially the hard ones.

An act of kindness toward a stranger is a choice that emerges from earlier choices about who you want to be and how you want to live. Say whatever you want about what you believe or don’t believe, but your choice to act in one way or another says everything about what you truly believe.

As for me, I aspire to be a man who is kind and helpful to strangers in a situation I recognize to be frightening. I aspire to be a man who isn’t so preoccupied with my own needs that I can’t pause for a few moments to ease someone’s fears when I am given the opportunity to do so.

There is a world of meaning and significance behind the simple act of “helping a little old lady across the street.” And a lifetime of choices that have led to that very moment.