or – what if we’re not lost at all?
The Invisible Checklist
Is it just me or is there an unspoken assumption that we are to know who we are, what we want, where we are going and how to get there?
Somewhere along the way, this invisible checklist gets handed to us. And if one has no clue and can’t check the boxes, it means they are lost. If they are lost, then they need to be found quickly, like the car keys when you are late for a meeting.
There’s something almost comical about how casually we accept this pressure. As if uncertainty is a personal failure rather than a natural state of being human.
When we are looking for our keys, the urgency is temporary, lasting a brief yet exhilarating moment. But when looking for ourselves it’s not as simple as looking in strange yet probable places keys can get placed, such as freezers or in the ignition.
The urgency is not some momentary titillation but a lasting underlying doomed sense, like the haunting music in a horror scene just before the nightmarish terror ensues. Dramatic but isn’t it kind of true?
There’s a low-grade anxiety that hums beneath the surface, whispering that we should have figured this out by now.
And maybe this is where the real existential ache lives. Not in not knowing, but in the belief that not knowing means something has gone wrong. That we are behind or that time is running out. That everyone else received a map we somehow missed.
The Demand to Know, Now
I used to think this urgency was proof that something needed fixing. That if I could just figure it out fast enough, the fear would dissolve. But the more I tried to force clarity, the louder the pressure became. Like gripping sand tighter and watching it slip through faster.
Imagine we knew every line to the story. Or how every decision would land, how every chapter would end. Imagine we called the screen writers demanding they tell us every ending to all the films.
It would ruin the whole thing. So maybe the problem isn’t uncertainty. Maybe it’s the expectation that uncertainty shouldn’t exist at all.
Mystery Is the Point
The surprise, the curiosity, the not knowing, that’s where the aliveness lives. If the moment we met someone – we instantly knew everything about them. Their wounds, their fears, their future. No unfolding. No discovery. It would rob us of wonder, of intimacy, of mystery.
And still, even knowing this, the fear doesn’t magically disappear. I don’t live without it, I just stopped letting it be the authority.
Loosening the Grip
So why do we demand this impossible level of knowing from ourselves? Isn’t it kind of fun to get to find out little by little? What helps me isn’t pretending the pressure isn’t there, but meeting it with a smaller, gentler choice.
When the mind wants the whole map, I give it one small step. Not the whole plan. Just the next movement.
I feel like the stars would sigh the moment humans loosen the grip on themselves and every little detail, and trust the ride without knowing where they put their keys or how to get back home.
There is something deeply human about wandering. About experimenting. About being mid-question. The wisdom teachings say that we are never lost, but all the looking around for what’s lost distracts from realizing it’s been here all along.
It’s a dark hilarious comedy this life. Tricky universe has got some seriously dry humor and is definitely having a chuckle. Who says chuckle? I guess I do now.
Maybe the joke is that we’ve been pressuring ourselves to arrive somewhere we never actually left. And maybe the moment we stop demanding answers, the path starts revealing itself anyway.
Not all at once. Just enough for the next step.
Loving YOU!
Meghan