CosmicSeeker20
For myself, the most important things in life are best learned by oneself, but there are also many things that would have been very helpful to have knowledge of when I was young.
I had no guidance when growing up, all of my 'learning' was learned from my mistakes in life (and I made a bunch of them!). Sometimes I muse of what it might have been like at around nine years old if someone had merely told me of the useful ideas within Confucian texts (topics like virtue and mindfulness). I could have invested years into learning the ancient Chinese language while translating the texts, and from the texts' ideas I would have made far better life-choices (and not now be regretting my boo-boos).
While it is true that one's mistakes as a child later heighten one's appreciations of properness as an adult, still, I think there are some things that are best to have never been learned.
And so for me, an honored teacher would have been someone who simply told me something like "Some Confucian books have good thoughts like 'Quality individuals embrace virtue; tiny people embrace materialism. Quality individuals embrace fairness; tiny people embrace favoritism.'" From there I could have begun my own research.
Sometimes, the most valued teacher is the one who knows so much about a topic, that they know where to precisely point and then say "There, go look for yourself.".
