A few months ago, marketing muse and author Seth Godin touched on an intriguing concept – the difference between a map and a compass, as they pertain to our 21st Century sense of direction.
Writes Seth: “Technology keeps changing the routes we take to get our projects from here to there. It doesn’t pay to memorize the route, because it’s going to change soon… And yet we spend most of our time learning (or teaching) the map, yesterday’s map, while we’re anxious and afraid to spend any time at all calibrating our compass.” The world’s explorers and adventurers created the first global map sometime in the 16th Century, and that initial view of the world’s waterways, roads and routes has been constantly changing ever since.
Think about the city or town you call home. How many times in the last few years has a new road been built or rerouted, or a new exit been added to an existing highway system?
Most likely, as recently as a few decades ago, many of the roads you take could have been stretches of forest, desert, or nature untouched by transportation systems. Our routes are constantly changing, so much so that a map drawn a year ago could lead you astray if you follow it to the tee.
As we progress through life, the course we’ve planned for ourselves is constantly evolving. Very rarely do we wind up in the profession we dreamed about as children (if that were the case, we’d all be firefighters, teachers, professional athletes, or even world leaders!), or marry the type of person we dreamed we’d end up with. Moreover, very few of us work the exact job we went to college to be trained for, or live in the city we’ve always wanted to call home.
Our life is a fluid, changing, and even meandering, thing, and a precisely drawn map never accurately reflects that. We’d have to be redrawing our life map every day, sometimes every few hours, to account for all the changes that come our way. There’s got to be a better method of finding our bearings. That’s where the compass comes in.
Instead of pointing you down a particular road, your internal compass guides you in a general direction. This internal compass – a mishmash of your hopes, desires, values, and priorities – is the only guide you need.
Even amid major changes to your life map, a compass never waivers; it will always point you toward your true north. And, here’s the best part: if you find your compass isn’t pointing you in a good direction, all it takes is a little recalibration (or reevaluation) of your priorities to get its needle back on track. That’s a whole lot easier, and a whole lot more effective, than redrawing your life map every time you stray from your intended route. We all know how often that happens!
The next time you find yourself searching for a bit of direction, put your map aside and zero in on where your compass is pointing you. It may not seem as precise as your map, but it’s a much truer indication of where you are and where you’re going. Remember, Happiness is an inside job!
HAPPINESS STRATEGY
The next time you have a spare hour or two, get in your car and take a drive. Don’t have a preconceived destination, and don’t switch on your GPS! Simply start driving and see where your intuition leads you. What did your destination end up being? How does your end point reflect your personality, likes/dislikes and other aspects of your compass?
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