Why It’s OK to be Lost And Confused

This is one of your best post yet! It really helps calm the nerves to know that other people have anxiety about life and where they are headed cause I feel that way all the time…Completely and uderly lost….Wondering if I have made the right decisions or if I totally screwed my life up…

Awesome post! #winning

Great post, especially if you’re young, single and childless. You can afford to take a risk and let it all go when there’s no-one depending on you, but if you have to keep a roof over your kids’ heads and you have to make sure there’s enough food to fuel their voracious appetites, the idea of letting it all go and seeing what happens becomes a bit impractical. Don’t get me wrong, I love the sentiment. I wish I could let it go and not worry. I don’t care what other people think of me (other than my kids of course) but I can’t just sit back and say it’s okay if I don’t know the answer to how I’m going to earn money. I’ve done the one-way ticket to a new country, did it with my ex and our daughter. Now I have three kids, I’m divorced and a long way from home. My ex is a good man, but somehow I have to figure out what I’m going to do with my life and sitting back and saying it doesn’t matter if I haven’t got all the answers isn’t going to make it happen. I’m told the paradox is if you let it go, that’s when it comes to you. How can you want something so badly it doesn’t matter if you don’t get it? Surely if it doesn’t matter if you don’t get it you didn’t really want it in the first place?

I think I need to write my blog about this today *lol* Thanks for the inspiration ;-)

Hey Therese,
Love your blog and your ideas. :) The one thing I want to offer a different perspective on is that going away to a different place is necessarily a good idea or will change anything. I say this as someone who longed to have a grand adventure and so recently went off to spend a year in Europe. What did I learn from this experience? That, while you can be exposed to new languages and meet new people through travel, it’s kind of the same deal everywhere: people go to work, they come home; they’re looking for love, they’re looking for happiness. You’re actually not missing out as much as you think you are by not going abroad, and honestly, the cost and bureaucratic loopholes are both very extensive and very stressful. I found that through it all, I barely had time for any chilling out or soul-searching.

I guess my two cents is that if you’ve wanted to travel your whole life and won’t be happy if you don’t do it, then by all means, go for it. However, I think a lot of people need to realize that not only will travel not solve their confusion, it also probably won’t make it easier to bear or make them happier in any way. I say if you want to explore new relationships or alternate ways of making a living, think about the fact that you can do that anywhere, including at home, where you hopefully have the emotional support of family and friends – and all your legal documents. :)

I´m new to this page and it´s a relief to see someone have a vague idea rather than a flash of inspiration brought forth by positive thinking or religious views. I too went to Australia in search of answers and came back with nothing really, except having experienced how going to the other side of the planet won´t change things by itself. I´ve also started to get used to the idea of being lost and I hope it´s not a bad type of contentment.
This is pretty obvious stuff, I guess my two cents are the following: 1) I tried meditation and hoped some sort of revelation would come to me (I accept how naive that is) and the closest I came to such a thing is being aware of how much we actually suffer due to other´s opinions of us, but worse yet, how these imaginary opinions can really make life unbearable. I guess I don´t feel strongly about what we leave behind in this life, perhaps the fleeting moments of compassion and connectedness are what gives our life some sort of meaning, whatever we leave behing shall be washed by the sea. 2) There is so much suffering in this world, I am from a third world country, although priviledged enough to have dealt with “first world problems”. Living in Australia I realized that our role in global inequality is a factor which ultimately will have a determinig role in finding our true path. I was going insane thinking about the stark contrast between where I´m from and how things play out in wealthy nations. This ultimately led me to return, I was about to become a cog in a machine perpetuating the dominance and excess of the wealthy (I was in hospitality) over the suffering of millions. Conversely, I have found that the happiest people I know are never the most successful or wealthy, but rather the most unassuming. When we think about our future we may be inclined to get our own, go for the gold and ignore our sense of connectedness. This may temporarily work for some, to build our own private paradise (which summons d-bags guests all too often) and believe we are “winners”. I believe everyone is a closet hippie or closet bhuddist, and that compassion and helping others is the only true way of finding meaning in life. True, we might not change the world and whatever we have done will not be permanent, but such is life. Life is unfair and there´s not much we can do to ultimately change things, but we can choose to go with a fight, but a beautiful one, where we lose ourselves in love (not the I love you type, which can be good, but universal love) and can never be lost.
The nature of existence is fleeting, I guess we have to surrender to uncertainty and impermanence, but it will not feel like surrendering if we are willing to let go of our self – love. We will all have to deal with this, as 100% of people die and that´s pretty much the only statistic we can trust. We will all have to let go. We might as well do it now and not live with a hidden fear of “the end”. I don´t claim to be an example of this as I am stil tempted by wealth and recognition, but from my experience I can tell you that no degree of “success” can ignore the fact that we all (myself included) don´t practice what we preach, and that we as humans have the capacity to create a friendlier, more considerate world. We feel “lost” because we feel alone, but we are all the same, sentient beings who want to be happy and avoid suffering. And as we are the same, other´s suffering is our own, and we will never feel safe or complete if we know we contribute to ignoring our fellow human´s suffering.
A bit utopic, I know. But we can defeat our true enemy (ego) when we choose to let go of it and TRUST. Times seem rough now, they probably always have been, but we actually have all the resources to create a world without fear, deprivation and suffering. Let´s face it: we only have each other to rely on, and we can only relate to each other because fear, loneliness, and being isolated are universal.

As simple as your words were, my whole perspective has suddenly shifted. I don’t feel any better, per se, about being completely lost and clueless…a 29 year old with a B.A. and M.A. in English literature who, after teaching at the university level for 3 years as a used and abused Adjunct is now working as a medical assistant at a Podiatry clinic wondering how this happened…but it makes me feel, for the moment at least, that maybe being lost and clueless is, as I feared, the state of things but, as I hadn’t anticipated, that that could be alright. As 30 hurtles at me like a cold-hearted bitch, threatening to turn me into a 30 year old loser with 2 degrees and nothing to show for it but what I learned..which, although I’m grateful for it and wouldn’t change it, doesn’t seem like much right now…I tilt my head and wonder if maybe, that’s just how life is now. I think what makes it hard for those of us who graduated into recession and uncertainty (I graduated with my B.A. in Dec. of 2007 right before the shit hit the fan, financially) is that most of our parents and grandparents lived such a different life. My parents own a home, have worked at the same jobs for over 20 years…there life is so seemingly stable. Meanwhile I have done every job under the sun, the longest I’ve worked in the same place was 2 years, I won’t be in a position to buy a house for the next like 5 years at least, etc… The question I always ask myself is: Where did I go wrong? Because I feel like I can only blame the situation on other things for so long before it starts plaguing me that it’s somehow my fault? Is it? Isn’t it? Who knows…I followed my heart and what I believed was my calling…and here I am. And now I don’t know…am I supposed to teach? Do I want that PhD in Literacy? Do I risk another degree only to still wind up in some random job which, is nice, but really doesn’t fulfill me on a deep, meaningful level. What to do, what to do? And yet, in the midst of this, your article. Embrace the uncertainty…make it your awkward friend. We don’t have to have it all figured out by the time we’re 30; Maybe if I say this enough to myself, it will begin to take over. But in the mean time, thanks for being the first person for ever pointing out that this is okay. -An Admirer

Hello everyone, priestandrew91@yahoo.com helped me out when i thought my life is lost don’t know where its going……… It all started when the father of my two kids left me and sworn never to have anything to do with me and all effort to get him back prove to be abortive and i decided to let things be the way they are cause i felt my life is lost don’t know where its going. But Priest Andrew came into the picture and things turned out to be how i have ever wanted it to be……….I will forever be grateful to him for the rest of my life, Am so happy!!!!!!!!!! Laura

Thank you so much for this! I am a first year college student, and I’m currently majoring in music. It’s what I’ve known and done since I was in fourth grade. Don’t get me wrong by what I’m about to say, because I love it. I have always and always will love music and this ability, this talent that I get to call my own. The problem? There are really only a couple of options job-wise for me to pursue with this major. Education or performance. Neither of which are appealing to me. So what’s a girl to do? Also, with a new found backstabbing b**** of a “friend” and a lying sort-of-boyfriend who lives on the other side of the country due to unavoidable surcumstances, and the feeling that that relationship may be ending soon, in all honesty I feel alone. There are times that I panick because I don’t know what to do! My biggest fear is changing my major but ending up with something I hate so completely. That is one of the biggest reasons why I haven’t changed majors yet. That and the fact that I don’t want to be a quitter. That’s how I feel what people are going to look at me. And then the question comes to mind, well if I switch majors is there another campus that could work better for me? While I have made some great friends here, I feel like it would be so nice sometimes to just start over sort of at a different place. One thing that makes me proud of myself when these thoughts become overwhelmingly intense, is all that I have learned about myself since I started this school year. I have learned to rely on myself, to not need the approval of others, and to not feel like I have to depend on a guy (or anyone really for that matter) to be happy. I can be happy by myself doing certain things that I love. And for these revelations, I am so glad. I’ve discovered that I am a lot stronger than what at one time I thought I was. I know that I can stand on my own two feet, even if I fall down a couple of times, and get up again and carry on. I wanted to say thank you for this article because it makes me feel a little less alone in these feelings. It’s nice to know that there are others out there who have and are going through some of the same things I am.