There Are No Trees At Sea

 One of the first things that a person is likely to notice while sailing on a ship is that the view of the sea is the same in every direction.

There are no guideposts to give us a sense of direction like there are while we are on land where we have signs, roads, mountains, trees, buildings, etc.  Since we live most of lives on land, most of us develop a dependency on these guideposts that society and common sense places on us to follow so that we do not 'get lost' using our social graces.

Therefore, most of us develop a dependency on external signs to give direction to our lives.   We depend on parents, friends, school, church, employers, media, etc. to assist us as we build an external-based life compass. 

Few make the effort to learn how to develop and live by a complementary individual internal compass.  Many do not know that developing an inner order is even possible.  We have few human models on how to build one.

As we develop our life compass, we produce ‘tapes’ where external guidelines become internalized with beliefs about self and our world.  We easily develop an internal image that is the same as the one developed for us by our outside world.

It is often said, “children are the world’s best recorders, but the world’s worst interpreters on what they hear.”  Children tend to take whatever they hear or see as being true without any process of testing the information for validation.  Most adults play these tapes of self-image learned as children and adolescents over and over without any effort to test and validate them.

I recall one time when our family went to Myrtle Beach, SC, where we visited the House of Mirrors.  Some mirrors gave the appearance of a person being very tall while others projected one being very short.  Other mirrors projected an image of one being very thin while another projected one being very fat.

 

Life is often like this.  The person in front of these mirrors was the same; only the mirror was different.  Yet, many choose to select an image that conforms to their own self-image based on what others have told them.  In a country which is obsessed with looks and images, it is easy to see how many people can develop negative physical views of themselves by depending on the images that others (mirrors) give to us regardless of their validity.

Developing an internal compass is a life-long process of receiving data from outside of one’s self and learning to listen closely to how it fits internally through validation processing.  Most of us start with ‘being at sea and accepting that there are no trees or other signs to help guide us’. 

We can develop our own internal compass through discovering, questioning, confronting, experimentation, research, observation, exploration, clarification, redefining, etc.  Personally, I believe that this emotional labor is far more difficult that any physical labor we may confront.  It can give us a valid reason to avoid the process of developing an internal compass, one that is comfortable with the sameness of having fewer external guidelines such as the sameness of the horizon at sea.

As with everything in our lives with the possible exception of the gift of life itself, we pay some type of price for all that we choose to do.  There are no freebies.  Yet, out external-focused life often teaches us the opposite.

Our desire to be ‘normal’ and live comfortably and safely with others is one of the major obstacles to developing an internal value and guidance compass for our life journey.  It takes lots of personal courage to look inward and challenge the basics we have been taught  to determine who and what we are by so many forces in our life.

For example:  we are confronted with the ‘myth of the good norm’ where we or someone we care about believes that there is only one way which is best for all to believe and behave.  Developing an internal compass asks us to confront this and other myths to determine whether they truly fit into our lives.  After all of the 'practice' we have in being 'normal', it sure can be difficult to see alternatives. 

We can learn that there is no one way for all, especially if we can avoid being too close to see, hear and value differences.  An example can be to challenge very prevalent perfectionist expectations in self and others.  With a great deal of work and effort, we can confront and challenge the guidelines that society gave to us as we grew up and choose a degree that works uniquely for our personal needs. 



Developing both an internal and external compass is positive mental health.
Yet, we know that changing from our excessive dependence on external guidelines for living is very difficult.   Psychologists will tell us that most of us will avoid change at almost any price until the psychic pain we are paying for the status quo becomes so strong that we are finally willing to take the risks that come with change.

We as adults, regardless of our age, now have the choice of whether we wish to begin our own personal and unique internal compass development for whatever remains of our life journey.   Just like being at sea with no trees or guidelines, we are free to go in whatever direction(s) we wish.

Yes, there will be many prices to be paid for making these internal-compass choices.   Only each of us as individuals can decide IF it is worth the prices we are asked to pay to ourselves and others.

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