Directionality

When I was young, I remember hearing advice given to me to ground myself in order to have a compass for life built into my head so that I wouldn't lose my direction.  Now, I realize that life doesn't have four main directions.  It has about a million directions (6 billion, really, since the Earth's population is that number).  To make a reference to a compass  in order not to lose my direction in life is such a gross simplification of life that I laugh at the thought today.

And as far as losing direction goes - well, what direction is a person headed at the beginning of his or her life?  There is no way to ever know since there are so many directions to go in the first place.  And even if one could identify the directions, life contains so many changes in it, who's to say that a change of direction is ever considered getting lost, especially since challenging times (even as a result of a bad decision) build character and lead to opportunities that might not otherwise be achieved.

Yeah, a compass for life is the poorest metaphor around as advice for a young person.