The Missing Piece: Embracing Life's Unpredictable Journey

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For most of my life, I clung to the idea that there was a perfect, destined version of myself waiting to be uncovered. I thought that if I just made the 'right' choices, followed the expected path, I’d eventually step into the life I was meant to live.

But, as always happens, life doesn’t unfold the way we imagine.

It’s messier, more complicated, and certainly more painful than we ever expect.

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Growing up, I was fed the same narrative as everyone else — the one where you finish school, find your career, meet 'the one,' buy a house, marry, have kids, and then everything just falls into place as you ride off together in your Winnebago, into the sunset for a fulfilling retirement.

Happiness, fulfillment, and success are presented to us like a series of neat milestones, as if they are the natural course of life.

And I believed in it.

I thought there was a blueprint, a 'how-to' guide for a meaningful existence, and if I followed it, life would work out.

But somewhere in the shift from childhood to adulthood, those ideals began to crumble. The world didn’t work the way I was promised it would. People didn't behave in the way I expected them to. The truth is, no matter how many 'right' decisions I tried to make, stumbling through the unpredictable chaos, life still really hurt.

At times, it felt like I was circling the same pain over and over, always stumbling just short of what I imagined happiness would look like.

And life has continued to hurt, no matter how old I am.

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There’s a common belief that we’re supposed to not only make the 'right' choices in life but also, inevitably, know what they are to begin with.

Society tells us that the right career, relationship, or family will fill the hole many of us feel inside. It’s the idea that if we just get it right, then we’ll have it all. We'll have fullied our destiny and not wasted a moment.

But the truth I’ve learned is that no amount of perfectionism or idealism will spare us from life’s unpredictability.

And in fact, that unpredictability isn’t a problem to solve, it’s the whole point.

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Would I go back and erase the painful, sometimes brutal, relationships? Would I go and whisper in the ear of 16 year old me - Run. Would I undo the bad decisions, the moments of deep hurt? The addictions that I've battled? The opportunities that I missed?

Honestly, the answer is no.

Those things - those often unbearably painful moments that felt like mistakes - have all shaped who I am. I’m not sure who I’d be without them. Actually, I am, and I know I don't want to be her.

So, perhaps the pain was never a mistake.

Perhaps it was always part of the story I was meant to live. And that can be a really hard thing to sit in, especially when the pain has been, or is, so great.

And sometimes, the suffering and loss is so great that there is no meaning in it. There is only learning left to be done about ourselves.

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Many of us feel that life has betrayed us somehow. We see everyone else's lives moving in a certain direction and think - why not me?

People feel lost and frustrated, wondering why things didn’t go as they hoped. Where did it all go wrong? They often feel like something’s wrong with them, like they’ve made all the wrong turns.

But that’s just it: those 'wrong turns' aren’t necessarily mistakes. They’re part of the human condition. Life is inherently unpredictable, and that’s not something we can control, no matter how much we try.

We often think that by following the script, we can avoid the mess.

But the mess is the story.

Your story.

So you may as well own it.

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I’ve come to see that suffering isn’t something we should try to avoid at all costs. Because that is an utterly pointless endeavour. It's an inevitable part of being human - no one is exempt.

It’s through our suffering that we grow - if we let it.

The key, I’ve learned, isn’t to avoid the pain but to figure out how to live with it. The real work is accepting that life won’t always be neat and tidy.

The work is letting go of the idea that we can control it all.

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For me, therapy has often been about helping others embrace the discomfort. It’s about understanding that suffering is part of the process, not an aberration. When we learn to face it without running away, when we stop pretending that we’re in control, something unexpected happens: we start to grow.

The trick, though, is learning to meet that suffering with kindness, rather than judgment. This is what self-compassion is about: treating ourselves with the same understanding we would a friend.

It’s about allowing ourselves to be imperfect, to make mistakes, and still, somehow, to find peace.

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I think the reason this hits so hard is because we’re all looking for some definitive answer to the question: 'What now?' As if there is a written answer. And maybe there is, somewhere. But you're wasting your time trying to find it.

We want a clear sense of direction, of purpose. We think that once we find the right path, life will make sense. But the older I get, the more I realise that there’s no clear path, no single 'right' way to live.

Life unfolds with all its twists, turns, and dead ends.

The real work is in accepting that.

The best thing you can do is learn to understand yourself and live more presently in each moment, growing in small ways, with patience. The better understanding you have of who you are inside - including your values, what makes you happy, fullfilled and at peace, and what challenges you in helpful ways - the more you will learn to trust yourself to make choices and decisions as they come.

There is no right choice.

There's just a choice.

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And maybe that's what it means to truly live - being ok with the uncertainty, the ambiguity.

Realising that there is no perfect, neatly tied-up life.

There’s just this one, messy, unpredictable life, and it's ours, whether we like it or not.

So, if you’re sitting with the frustration that life isn’t going as you expected, if you feel weighed down by the weight of unmet expectations, know that you are not alone.

The journey, with all its imperfection, is the missing piece and it will teach you who you are as it unfolds.