The Compass and the Map

The Compass We’re Born With

Each of us is born with an internal compass. It doesn’t come with instructions or permission slips. It’s not something issued to us after passing a test. It’s simply there from the beginning—quiet, steady, and deeply personal.

Our direction is shaped early on by family, culture, community, and the environment we grow up in. Eventually, we feel that pull—our true north—guiding us toward experiences and choices that align with who we are, for some, that pull starts as a whisper. For others, it comes with a clarity that can’t be ignored. Either way, it’s ours.

“At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.”

Lao Tzu

The Map We’re Handed

On the other hand, society presents us with a standardized map—and it doesn’t take long before we’re expected to follow it. This map is filled with instructions on how to live, work, behave, and succeed. And sure, in some areas, structure is helpful. But what happens when the map stops being a guide and starts being a set of demands?

Especially when those demands seem to apply to us more than the people who designed them.

Suddenly, we start hitting dead ends. We follow the directions, but the destination feels wrong. The roads are crowded, the signs don’t match, and somewhere along the way, we start asking: Does this map even reflect my world?

“The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity.”

Rollo May

Compass vs. Map

What happens when your internal compass doesn’t align with the official map?

Are you lost? Rebellious? Difficult? Are you veering off-course, or simply taking the path that was meant for you all along?

I don’t believe I’m lost. I don’t want to travel 75 miles per hour on a superhighway where no one looks out the window anymore. I prefer the scenic route. The open air. The spaces where we pause. The places where we feel.

My compass leans toward humanity, not bureaucracy. It doesn’t stop at checkpoints or ask for validation. And it certainly doesn’t yield to a map so often ignored by those who wrote it.

“Not all those who wander are lost.”

J.R.R. Tolkien

Rethinking the System

Maybe it’s time we reconsider the maps altogether.

Maybe systems should be tools that respond to people, not structures that restrict them. Maybe citizenship shouldn’t require the erasure of culture or the silencing of individuality. Perhaps we should stop designing roads that box people in and start creating paths that allow them to become who they were always meant to be.

And maybe, just maybe, we need to remember that for most of us, we are here in this country because someone before us made a journey- a journey guided by hope, not a government-issued map. This land wasn’t handed to us—it was passed through, lived in, and loved long before we arrived. If we start treating belonging like a limited resource, we forget the very path that brought us here.

“No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark.”

Warren Shire

Where Are You Headed?

Consider:

Where is your true north taking you?

Does it match the map you’ve been told to follow?

Or is it time for a realignment—from the inside out?

Perhaps society's real work is not to hand down maps from above but to co-create them, side by side, with the people who will travel those roads.

“A map tells you where you’ve been, a compass tells you where you’re going.”

Unknown

Talk soon…

G