My father believed that everyone should own a compass. I never met anyone who questioned it, maybe because they were his shipmates and they all knew the importance of a compass. Most likely because my father was a chief in the navy and you don’t question the authority or intelligence of a chief. All I know is that we all respected him.
However, what most people did not know is that my father wanted people to own a broken compass. Why own something that will not help you find which way to go? He would tell me that a broken compass leaves room for you to decide, learn, and grow. If it always pointed in the right direction, you would not be independent enough to make your own decisions and learn from it.
For a while I accepted that as fact, a metaphor meant to teach everyone who knew him something.
That was until I learned the darker meaning behind the broken compass. In reality my father was the broken compass, too stubborn to point himself in the direction of asking for help that he got lost and perished.
Since the day my father died, we have all lived in some vague sense of chaos created from all the questions swirling around us--ones that no one will have an answer to.
“What if I had woken up?”
“What if you would have noticed something was wrong?”
“What if someone else found him first?”
“Did it hurt?”
“What was he thinking?”
I used to believe his self-inflicted death was my fault. Then I started to believe it was her fault. I have begun to realize that none of this is anyone's fault. It is not her fault, it is not mine.
I used to keep a broken compass in my jewelry box.
I have grown to stop believing in keeping broken compasses.
I am not saying that my father’s theory is completely wrong. It was just flawed. If we don’t have some sort of idea of what we want and where we want to go, it will only lead to heartbreak and destruction. Sometimes life gets difficult and we need help to find our way. While we should not be codependent, there is no shame in asking for direction.
So here is my new, and hopefully less flawed theory. Of course it has some room to grow, and I would encourage you to create your own.
The theory is as follows:
As I’ve been growing, I feel that we should all buy maps instead, to plot out where we want to go in the future, a more reliable path.
It always provides the ability to change your mind on destinations as you get older.
A map still has the room for mistakes, some of which you will fix on your own, some of which you will need to ask for help later on.