An inner compass

Even the idea of an internal guide can be confusing. Incredibly natural once you realise there is no other guide, very confusing when all you’ve relied on is external markers.

From the moment you are born your existence has depended on the feeding hand of another, both metaphorically and initially (and usually forevermore) the hand of another. It can be easy therefore to assume that the guide comes outside in.

Society further encourages that view: that measures of success or direction come, must come, from the diktats of the world around you, ancient or modern.

But the danger here is you follow a compass that isn’t yours. And much like a broken compass that doesn’t point to North, your North, the risk is that you wander to someone or something else’s chosen aim.

The dissonance of such a strategy is a yawning gulf between who you actually are and what you feel like you’re becoming.

Realignment is a question of pulling out the compass and changing direction. Blindly following the inner compass.

Blindly? Yes, blindly. Because your inner compass doesn’t offer a wrong direction.