I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard someone say, “I just need to find myself.”
It’s usually said with a sigh, a hint of exhaustion, maybe after a breakup, a retirement, or some unexpected life shift. I used to say it too—especially after my own retirement, when I suddenly had all this space and time I’d never had before.
But here’s what I’ve learned: “finding yourself” might be one of the most misleading ideas we’ve ever been sold.
We talk about it as if there’s a neat version of us out there waiting to be discovered—hidden behind a tree in Bali or tucked away in a yoga retreat. But what if there’s nothing to “find”? What if we’re meant to get a little lost instead?
My wake-up call
When I first retired from teaching, I thought I’d instantly feel “me again.” After all, I’d been waiting years for that freedom—no more grading papers, no more ringing bells marking my days.
But instead of clarity, I felt something closer to panic. My identity had been tied up in being “Mrs. Quinn, the English teacher” for decades. Without that role, I didn’t quite know who I was.
I remember sitting at my kitchen table one quiet morning, tea cooling beside me, thinking: So, this is it? This is the time I’m supposed to “find myself”?
But no matter how hard I looked, there wasn’t some neatly defined “self” waiting for me. There was just… me. Confused, curious, and a little scared.
That’s when I started to suspect that maybe “getting lost” isn’t the opposite of growth—it is growth. It’s what happens when life removes the labels we’ve lived under and asks us to see what’s left.
Why the idea of “finding yourself” doesn’t quite work
The phrase suggests there’s a finished version of you hiding somewhere, like a completed puzzle waiting under a rock.
But people aren’t puzzles. We’re more like gardens—constantly growing, shedding, blooming, and reseeding ourselves in new ways.
The older I get, the more I see how misleading the “self” myth can be. It tells us that identity is fixed, that there’s a correct version of us to uncover. But in truth, who we are shifts as we live, love, age, and lose.
If there’s one thing I wish I could tell my younger self, it’s this: you don’t have to have it all figured out. You just have to keep showing up.
In my twenties, I thought “finding myself” meant choosing the right career, the right partner, the right city. Decades later, I see how often life’s detours gave me far more wisdom than the times I felt certain.
Getting lost forces us to listen—to our instincts, our emotions, and our bodies. Maybe “getting lost” just means starting to listen again—to the subtle compass already inside you.
Letting go of the map
One of the hardest things about midlife (and beyond) is realizing that the maps we used to rely on don’t always work anymore.
For years, my life had a clear route: go to college, get a job, raise a family, retire. Then one day, you wake up and realize you’ve reached “the end” of that map—and no one told you what comes next.
At first, that blank space can feel terrifying. But over time, I’ve come to see it as liberating. When there’s no map, you can finally start walking in directions that feel alive, not just familiar.
Last year, for instance, I started volunteering at a literacy program again—not because I needed to “be useful,” but because I missed the spark of helping someone else find their voice. Funny enough, I think I rediscovered part of my own in the process.
Getting lost invites curiosity. It pushes us to stop living on autopilot and start noticing where our hearts tug us next.
Here’s a little secret: there’s no final version of you waiting to be unlocked. You’re not a project to complete or a riddle to solve.
When we stop chasing the idea of “arriving,” we start to actually live. We begin to notice that the moments of laughter with our friends, the quiet walks around the block, the tears we shed over small losses—all of it adds up to something much deeper than a “found” self.
When getting lost leads you home
I once heard someone describe midlife as “the second adolescence,” and I think that’s spot on.
You question everything you once took for granted—your beliefs, your routines, even your ambitions. And it’s disorienting. But like adolescence, it’s also the gateway to a truer, freer version of yourself.
That’s what Rudá’s (a founder here at The Vessel) teachings are really about: embracing the chaos rather than escaping it. His book inspired me to stop treating confusion as a problem and start seeing it as a sign that I’m still alive, still learning.
As he writes in his new book, “When we stop resisting ourselves, we become whole. And in that wholeness, we discover a reservoir of strength, creativity, and resilience we never knew we had.”
It’s funny, isn’t it? The more we try to “find” ourselves, the more trapped we can feel. But when we loosen our grip—when we let the questions stay open—the answers often rise naturally to meet us.
The journey is the point
Looking back, I think all the times I felt lost—career transitions, raising teenagers, navigating retirement—were the very times I was growing the most.
We’ve been conditioned to think of life as a straight line. But it’s more like a spiral, bringing us back to familiar lessons from higher ground each time. What once felt like losing your way might, in hindsight, look like turning toward what mattered most.
So if you’re wandering right now, unsure of who you are or where you’re headed, maybe you don’t need to find yourself at all. Maybe you just need to keep walking—curiously, compassionately, and with an open heart.
Because sometimes, the moment you stop searching so hard is the moment you realize: you were never truly lost. You were simply evolving.
I don’t believe in “finding myself” anymore. I believe in meeting myself—again and again—as life changes shape around me.
And if you’re feeling a bit lost these days, maybe that’s not something to fix. Maybe it’s an invitation. An invitation to explore, to shed old stories, and to see who you’re becoming next.
