The Compasses

The Compasses help us draw the line between want and need—not to limit our lives, but to aim them.

Want Less, Live More

You probably didn’t think of compasses as a tool for ambition. But here’s the twist: they’re not for expanding your reach—they’re for limiting it.

Imagine you have a giant whiteboard and an uncapped marker in your hand. The urge is to go big: draw a huge circle, cover every inch, take on more, aim higher, faster, better. That’s what our modern culture tells us to do—optimize, scale, hustle. The problem? When everything is in your circle, nothing truly is. Now imagine if I asked you to color in that big circle with your marker. Exhausting right?

The Compasses teach us to draw a smaller circle on purpose. Not out of fear or lack, but out of clarity. You choose what’s in bounds and what’s out. You contain your desires, not to kill them, but to aim them. The Compasses are a limit, true, but a limit that liberates. You become intentional. You learn to want what matters.

One man told us he used to say “yes” to every opportunity. It felt like ambition, but it was actually anxiety dressed in hustle. His relationships suffered. He regularly suffered burnout and was perpetually chugging energy drinks just to keep up. He was successful and hollow at the same time. What changed him? A small circle drawn in his journal: “What do I truly need right now?” That’s when he remembered the Compasses.

Use them. Not to shrink yourself, but to stop leaking. To concentrate. To focus your energy where it matters. That’s the Masonic move.

Related Diagnostic Questions: 

• Where are your desires pulling you beyond what’s appropriate or helpful?
• What’s currently in your circle that doesn’t belong there?
• How might you redraw your boundaries to better align with who you’re becoming?
• Are you chasing more—or choosing better?

Use it now:

Draw two circles on a page:

• Inside the first, write what you're currently saying “yes” to.
• Inside the second, write what you want to say “yes” to if you were operating from your best self.
• Now compare. What’s one thing you need to say “no” to, today, to reclaim your Compasses?

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