October 8, 2025.
Written by General Psychologist, James Blaze

Meaning and Direction in a Stuck Life

It’s a strange feeling when life seems to be moving forward, but you don’t feel like you are really a part of what is going on. It can feel like you are going through the motions, checking off tasks, doing what’s expected—but there’s a sense of disconnection underneath it all. Maybe you have been thinking to yourself Is this it?

We may reach a point in life where things appear to be what we had hoped for on the outside, but inside, they feel stale and static. This can be a common experience for many of us, but it is possible to reconnect with what matters, whether during distress or numbness to our usual life.

At the heart of this is something simple, yet impactful: meaning. This is not necessarily about making more impact or doing better. It is about learning how to live more fully and purposefully in the present moment in line with what matters to you.

Escaping Being Human

The world we live in can tell us a way of life that is based on experiencing happiness and comfort for as long as possible. We are told that if we do enough, become enough, look enough or achieve enough, only then will we finally be satisfied. However, this way of living may be the one thing keeping us from contentment when it matters, in the present moment.

The reality is that all kinds of pain are expected parts of being human that nobody can escape. Shame, guilt, disappointment, grief, worry or dread and heartache are all unavoidable parts of life at some point. These emotions tell us that we are human and that we feel, not that there is something wrong with us, and we will experience this forever. Although we often respond to them as if we must eliminate them immediately.  

This kind of avoidance of our uncomfortable experience can bring quick relief. However, over time, the costs of such avoidance accumulate towards a life of constant escape from discomfort. We move towards acting in line with a life of paying up to escape being human.

A Different Way of Relating

Seeing as the cost of pushing away distress gradually adds up in a way that we only realise in hindsight, what if there was another way of relating to our uncomfortable experiences of being human? Learning to relate to our thoughts, emotions, memories and urges from a place of openness to experience can be a way to let go of a life full of avoidance and towards learning that you can cope. In this way, we find that we no longer need to be controlled by the things that show up in our lives.

A change can happen when we stop engaging in an internal battle to defeat, solve or eliminate every uncomfortable inner experience. On the way, we learn that we can tolerate thoughts, emotions, feelings, and urges that we perceived to be overwhelming. Instead of paying them attention and getting worked up about them, we learn to make room for them and that we can save time, energy, health and relationship potential to devote to things more important than escaping our human experience.

Implementing this way of relating to our experience may not be intuitive or easy to do, especially given our conditioning to solve problems and fix problems. But if we can implement an openness and acceptance of things that we may not be able to change as much as we think we can, it can be a liberating experience. Your next move now becomes based not on what you want to get rid of, but on how you actually want to live.

Getting to Live How We Want to

When we feel that life is directionless, it may be because we have lost touch with what really matters to us, our values. Our values are characterised by principles that are especially important to us. Values are intrinsically incentivising and cue us to act in line with standards we find purposeful at any given moment, bestowing meaning on our life when we live by them. Do not forget that we can never achieve values because they are not goals; they are simply a way we can choose to live by in any given moment that is gratifying.

Values can often be applied differently to a variety of situations, which makes them flexible in application. For example, you may uncover that newness, creativity, connection, and fun are values that you have. The challenge is to find ways to live by your values every day so you do not need to chase what you think is an all-encompassing, gratifying goal (that you may never reach and which may not satiate you, even if you do reach it). For example, trying something outside your comfort zone with a friend you do not often make time to see. Living a meaningful life in this way is not about permanency, achievement or perfection. It’s about taking small, intentional steps toward what matters to you most right now.

If you find that life feels flat and unsatisfying, you might benefit from working with a therapist who can help you explore your conditioned patterns of pushing away uncomfortable experiences, the costs you pay to do so and learning new ways of relating that take you in the direction of a life filled with what is meaningful to you.