Like every other human being, we deal with daily struggle and frequently face conflict in our lives. So what do we do when we feel like all hope is lost? If I feel like I need to seriously reconsider something, I take the serious time to reflect on what I personally believe in most. Things like passion, love, family, and friendship: all qualities that make up my own personal compass. If I’m lost, I can use these as moral guides to get myself back on track. I know that each and every one of these points are taken into serious consideration whenever a decision is to be made and that there is no ‘correct’ direction to go when following them. Each ‘way’ I go will get me out of the blue.
When comparing my compass with group members in Wednesday’s class, people often related passion and love to each other. However I define passion to be directed to a more concrete incentive that bears a driving sensation, while love is a feeling you feel towards a human being or object that makes it more special than anyone/thing else. Right now, I’m at conflict with what I want to do with my life after high school. I know I want to go to college to study music, however I doubt my ability to get into a good school with the skill I currently possess. I’d like to believe that I have a strong passion for music and with that passion comes determination and hard work to better myself for the future. I want to be prepared for that big step to college and I never want to lose that love for music that I’ve recently discovered I have.
Now love, on the other hand, is one direction that I would head in if I were generally feeling ‘down in the dumps’ or just sad. I have a wonderful girlfriend that I can look forward to always being there for me. I also have a profound love for music that cannot be expressed into words, but only to emotions. I was lucky enough to have my girlfriend by my side as we watched an orchestra play in Washington D.C. while we were on a field trip for the music department. The beautiful music combined with the knowledge of experiencing it with her makes the memory so much more thrilling. What made the experience even better was also being surrounded by friends.
Friendship can do almost exactly what love does for a person. Sure love may be taken to an extremely personal level in your mind, but friendship is just what everyone needs. Nothing beats having a friend to laugh with and relate to. Even when we just feel like we’re falling apart, it is our natural instinct to fall back on a friend and make them listen to all of our problems until the venting eases the pain. Having a friend will guide us from making wrong decisions, as long as this friend believes in supporting the best choices for you. This is what may make friendship complicated. It’s easy to see in teenagers at high school every day. Girls may appear to be best friends forever, but will be gossiping about one another the next minute. Guys may act ‘cool’ with other guys, but we will always judge one another to some extent. So having that one great friend that you know won’t judge you, but only like you for who you are is extremely important to a healthy, moral lifestyle. Even seeing my dog makes me feel awesome. It just feels great to know that someone is happy to see you every once in a while. But of course, a dog is part of the family.
Now, family may not always be a way out of distress for people, but I am positive that I look to my family for support. They have always supported my decisions and it feels amazing to have that. I’m positive that I’m lucky to have a family that supports me because I know others are not so fortunate. Being able to go home and share your thoughts with your parents is a feeling so unconsciously relieving that it will really make your life easier. To me, family will always be that default setting in your life that accepts you even though you may have screwed up. Knowing you will always be forgiven is one of the greatest feelings either. I do not take that for granted and I will know that having a supporting family is to be treasured.
So according to my overly in-depth personal compass, I can say that the ‘directions’ of the compass will always help me through struggle. I can envelope myself in hard work and work passionately towards a goal. I can enjoy the love I’m given on a daily basis and love her back, or constantly increase the love I have for music by simply listening. I can look to my friends for help; laughing, jam ‘sesh’ing. I can vent to my family and always know that someone will be on my side. Even my dog (which I’m truly proud of). My personal compass may not be completely realized on a daily basis, but there will always be the struggles in life which will make me turn to my compass and make me ask myself, “What am I going to do?”
Nathan Fuller 
Great blog Nate! I love the points you chose to write about, they’re a lot similar to mine. First though, I would like to tell you that you have to be completely 100 percent positive and ready to take that step towards music. I’m trying to reach for the top and aim to be rich and my advice to you is exactly the same because if I can do it so can you. I agree with all of your other points too but I had one question about the order you wrote them in. Did you mean to put friendship above family? If you did, why is that how you feel?
Nate,
I love your paragraph on love. This also may be because I’m a sappy teenage girl, but either way it was good. I also enjoyed the friends one because everything you said is so true. We’re all guilty and we’re all victims, it’s life. Actually I prety much enjoyed all your paragraphs. They all had good insights. Good Job!
I was able to relate with you when you talked about your passion for music, because we both really share that same passion. You talked about not being able to get into a good college because you believe you aren’t a skilled enough musician. This really sparked my interest because sometimes I feel the exact same way. Then I really start to think about the amount of progress I’ve made in a short time and realize I’m just being hard on myself. I think this may be the case for you because I think you are a talented musician. Anyway, this was a very good post and I could relate to it.