Why I’m Not Allowed to Lead the Hike

Several years back, I went on a backpacking trip in Colorado. I had been on this trip once before. I loved it enough to go back again and this time my husband came with me. It was a day or two into the adventure and our group had settled in for the night under our tarp and around our stoves. We were casually talking and laughing and having a good time as one does on backpacking adventures.

The conversation turned to leadership and directions and the difference between a mile and crow’s mile. I learned that a crow’s mile is a straight line from one point to another without any care to trails or rivers or whatnot. I suggested we follow the crow’s mile and we’d get there faster…I saw my husband’s compass sitting out and took it. I glanced at it briefly and exclaimed very proudly, “well, if you want to know where North is, it is that way…” as I pointed very confidently. I just knew I could be the leader of this group with my intact navigational ability. The group got very quiet. Eyes were staring. I had no idea what I did that was so wrong. My husband then, very kindly, took his compass and flipped it over. Suddenly, true North was the complete opposite direction from where I had very confidently pointed. Apparently in order to find true North you have to have your compass flipped the right way. We all had a good laugh and I was dubbed the person who probably, ok most definitely, should not be in charge of following the compass. 

While I would not claim to be directionally challenged, in that situation I did not know how to use the tools that were in front of me. What started as pure confidence turned into an incredibly humbling moment. I had the tool to go the right direction but I didn’t use the tool the way it was intended and in this case, it did not work. Had I followed it, I would have gone the opposite way of where I needed to go. And if others had followed me, they would have too. Thankfully I was surrounded by others who knew how to use a compass! 

Has this ever happened to you? Maybe not a compass moment, but a time when you were so sure you were reading a situation correctly—only to have someone gently show you that you were using the tool the wrong way?

I think about this moment frequently. It never really was about the compass. It was about how easy it was to feel so certain, to trust our instincts, to assume we are reading a situation correctly - only to realize we are holding the whole thing upside down. Not because we are careless, or incapable, but simply because we have not learned how to correctly use the tools we’ve been given. And sometimes, it takes someone beside us to kindly, with compassion, quietly flip the compass and help reorient us. 

I wonder where a quiet reorientation might be waiting in your life.