Ha, I don’t necessarily mean when you are traveling somewhere new and are unfamiliar with the area when you take a wrong turn. For that one, don’t we all?!
My primary question is about purpose and direction in life. Do you ever feel lost? My guess is that if you don’t feel it now, you have at some point in your life, e.g., what do I do after high school, picking what company to work for, etc.
I have had a deeply rooted fear of getting lost or separated from my group on an outing since I was a child. As a child, it was immensely scary. Now as an adult, I want to reframe this fear and claim it as my own strength that I believe in myself. You are probably wondering “why now?” And my response is “recently in this fall season, I intentionally chose to get lost in a corn maze at a local farm.”
I entered this corn maze on my own. I flew in blind since I had terrible cell service in the area that I couldn’t even get a copy of the corn maze (and to this day, I do not even know what the design of the corn maze was – not really the point, you know). For the first 10 minutes, I kept running into the people who entered ahead of me at different segments of the maze. Now, I did everything in my power to stay away from them and potential group think. I wanted to do this on my own without assistance because I GOT THIS!
As I meandered in a lost fashion through the maze, I remember distinctly hearing voices through the maze chatting. Not necessarily giving advice, but kept wondering to myself “what do they know? How do I get over there? Over there must be the way out.” And I realized, they are probably just as lost as I am; not saying my path is better. It is just the path I am currently on that I need to keep traveling.
At this point, I am randomly selecting paths at a whim and without much thought. Every couple of minutes, I would come across a sign like “feeling lost? get a hint here” or “Need a hint? get a hint here”. I kept telling myself “I can do this” and “I trust myself to get out of the maze”. I reserved the right to ask for help if I was genuinely feeling hopeless and lost. I certainly felt a little nagging feeling of lack of trust within myself when I came across a woman and a little girl hiding in the corn acting like no one could see them. The woman said as I passed, “don’t mind us, we are just lost.” Now they were separated from their party and weren’t that upset as they waited.
Not long after, I made it to the halfway point of the maze. Yeay!! Now, yes, at the halfway point there is an exit if I deemed it absolutely necessary. Did I take it? Hell no! I was convinced if I could make it halfway, I could finish this maze strong because my inner trust and belief in myself to get out got me to this point. At this time, I was developing self-efficacy within myself which is the belief or capacity in one’s own self to act in the ways necessary to reach specific goals (i.e., get the heck out of this maze).
As I continued along the second half of the maze, I would hear voices, but I wouldn’t let that deter me from my mission. At one point, I kept hitting dead ends and I realized (a genius) someone had scratched big X’s into the dirt in front of the dead end paths. Naturally, at first, I didn’t notice the X’s and then, later, I intentionally went down the paths just to see where they lead even if it was a dead end as I was curious to see how far it goes down.
Eventually after many wrong turns and lack of direction, I was able to exit the maze in one piece and felt very confident that I could trust myself. Not only for just the maze, but also in moving forward in uncertainty. As much as I love certainty, the old saying “only thing certain in life is death” comes to mind. I want to become more resilient and capable of handling any curve ball thrown my way because I trust myself to deal with and handle it. This lesson taught me how I gifted myself one of the best things I could ever give myself: trust in myself during uncertainty.
Would I say I love getting lost now? Yikes, NO WAY, unless I am exploring a new city to create fantastic new memories. If anything, I am becoming more comfortable with uncertainty since uncertainty can be scary and yet I still choose to move forward even if it looks like I am going backwards. I am also realizing the path I am on is mine to choose and there is true empowerment in that.
Circling back around to the beginning question: what area(s) in your life do you feel lost? How do you get through it? Or do you stay lost? Have you gone down a path that you instinctively knew wasn’t the path for you? Upon reflection, what are some of the benefits/take-aways from “feeling lost” that you can apply to future experiences? How can you feel more comfortable in the future feeling lost?
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