Lost, Stubborn, and Weirdly Proud of It

It’s interesting to me that when we need directions to get from point A to point B, we ask. We ask people who look like they know the area. We trust maps, GPS, random strangers at gas stations, and occasionally that one friend who confidently says, “Oh yeah, I know exactly where we’re going,” right before leading us into a cornfield and a mild emotional breakdown. Still, most of the time, we ask. And even more interesting? We trust the directions once we get them. We don’t usually stare at the GPS and yell, “I WILL FIND MY OWN WAY, THANK YOU VERY MUCH.” We follow the guidance because we understand something important: getting lost for three unnecessary hours is annoying.

Apparently, though, that wisdom only applies to driving. Life? Oh no. That’s where many of us suddenly become fiercely independent little chaos goblins convinced we must figure everything out alone.

Buy a new gadget? Most people at least glance at the instructions before assembling it. If you’re like me, however, you look at the manual, look at the pile of parts, laugh nervously, and decide, “How hard could this be?” Sometimes it works immediately. Other times you end up holding one mystery screw, questioning your life choices, and crawling back to the instruction manual after wasting an hour and at least seventeen perfectly good brain cells. You’d think I would have learned by now to just read the instructions first. Yeah well… there you went thinking. LOL

The funny thing is, many of us move through life exactly the same way. We struggle. We overcomplicate things. We emotionally duct tape pieces together while pretending we absolutely know what we’re doing. We exhaust ourselves trying to prove we are capable, independent, self-reliant adults who have our shift together. Meanwhile, half of us are one mildly inconvenient email away from needing a nap and a support potato.

Somewhere along the way, asking for help became associated with weakness. We learned that needing guidance meant we were failing. That capable people should already know the answers. That by a certain age, we should have life figured out. I’ll be 60 in a couple of months, and let me lovingly tell you something society does not advertise nearly enough: most adults are just winging it with confidence and caffeine.

Seriously.

People become very skilled at looking like they know what they’re doing. We build routines, careers, personalities, social masks, and carefully curated online lives. We learn how to sound certain even when we feel completely lost underneath it all. And honestly? I think a lot of us are tired. Tired of pretending. Tired of carrying everything alone. Tired of believing struggle is proof of strength.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I did ask for help here and there over the years. But more often than not, my stubbornness got in the way. I thought I had to earn wisdom the hard way. I thought struggling alone somehow made me more capable, more worthy, more independent. What it mostly made me was exhausted.

On the bright side, I learned a lot along the way. Truly. Some of my greatest lessons came from fumbling around in the dark trying to assemble emotional IKEA furniture without the instructions. But imagine how much faster we grow when we stop treating guidance like failure. Imagine how much energy we save when we stop pretending we’re supposed to know everything already. Imagine what becomes possible when we realize asking for help is not weakness — it’s wisdom.

That realization changed so much for me. Not overnight. Not magically. Not with angels singing while I suddenly became emotionally organized and started folding fitted sheets correctly. Let’s not get carried away. But slowly, I began understanding something important: humans were never meant to navigate life entirely alone.

Sometimes we need directions. Sometimes we need perspective. Sometimes we need someone who has walked a similar road to say, “Hey… you’re not crazy. You’re just lost right now.” That matters.

In fact, that realization became part of my mission. Because I know what it feels like to spend years circling the same emotional blocks while pretending you’re “fine.” I know what it feels like to keep searching for answers while simultaneously being too stubborn to ask for guidance. And I also know how powerful it is when someone finally helps you see the map differently.

That’s why I do what I do. Not because I have life perfectly figured out. Trust me, I still occasionally try to assemble things backwards before admitting defeat. But because every lesson I learned the hard way became something I could hand to someone else with a little more compassion, a little more clarity, and hopefully a lot less unnecessary suffering.