True North

“Just as a compass always points to true north, your heart will recognize true principles."
Sean Covey

“We cannot cope with the confusions and the challenges of this world unless we use a clear and consistent moral compass that will unerringly take us through our own personal trials and the tugs and pulls of our own temptations--a compass that will chart our way to peace of mind, self-worth, and joy.”
Elder Richard B. Wirthlin

Quotations, self-help books and other sources of deliberate inspiration often admonish us to find our moral direction.  They suggest that we develop some sort of internal compass to find a spiritual true north.  Does this metaphor work?

The North Pole and the Magnetic North Pole are not the same.   The North Pole is a relatively fixed point on the top of the world where the Earth’s axis of rotation meets its surface.  Since the Earth is not perfectly round, the North Pole moves a few yards back and forth in the frozen Arctic Ocean because the Earth wobbles as it turns.  The Magnetic North Pole is the point where, if you held a compass over it sideways, it would point straight down.  This is not a fixed point.  It is presently near Ellesmere Island in Northern Canada and is moving toward Russia at almost 40 miles an year due to magnetic changes in the Earth’s core.  It has been moving since 1904 and is speeding up.

Commentary:  Why didn't they tell us this in school? 

In a nutshell: The only constant is change.