I’ve been lost a few notable times. I’m talking literally lost, as in can’t find my way physically back to familiar surroundings. I’ve been lost in a figurative way, in life, too, as in aimless and unmoored, flailing and floundering, unable to find purpose and drive.
They both have their lessons. But I want to talk here about the benefits of physically losing your way.
I’ve been lost in the woods a few times, retracing steps and inadvertently circling around to where I’ve already been. I’ve been lost in cities where I don’t speak the language, an equally disconcerting plight. One time in East Berlin I walked for hours all through the night searching for my gray, nondescript apartment building (all buildings in East Berlin were gray and nondescript back then), which I’d seen for the first time earlier that day, by car.
I’ve been lost big and small, afar and locally. I once feared a night out in the woods with my 9-year-old son in the November chill as we neared 10 miles of futile hiking trying to find our way out.
Every one of these lost forays yielded benefit. Always, I came away with something gained, something learned. Of course, surviving is key to these lessons.
Why Get Lost?
It’s a lost art, getting lost, because we have become, as a global society, so accustomed to being in touch and charting our courses electronically. Our outer skies are buzzing with hundreds of satellites that give us the capability of locating our position on earth via a handheld computer, and chatting with loved ones from any remote corner.
One never really intends to get lost, that would be almost oxymoronic and conceptually difficult. Rather, every time I’ve become lost it’s been the result of spontaneity, of acting on a whim to set out walking or running, without plotting a route. The freedom of pointing and going for no other reason than because you want to go there.
Getting lost requires either forgetfulness or willingness to forego the GPS gadget or cellphone, or even maps. Leave it all at home and set out into unknown territory.
But why would we do that? Why would we plan to lose our way?
5 Benefits of Getting Lost
The answers to these questions are not obvious nor are they easily obtained. But I will say from experience that getting lost is the only way to be truly found.
Becoming lost is a route to discovery. The act of getting disoriented forces us into a pattern of thoughts and mind processes that potentially lead to revelations and abilities that we never would have known existed if we were always aware of where we are, always comforted by safety and familiarity.
Recently on a walk in the outskirts of my town, and again on a bike ride, I wandered into unfamiliar territory – technically lost – and, while I knew the general area I was in, I had to double back and take some unexpected twists and turns to work my way back.
Each time, when I realized I had lost my way, I let go of something, and stumbled upon a freedom, an unanchoring, that could have only happened through this disoriented process. I gave myself permission to be unfound and relaxed into the art of aimless wandering. It’s hard to explain, but I highly recommend it.
In an effort to come a little more down to earth, here are five benefits of artfully losing your way.
- Focus.
When you realize you don’t know where you are, your mind takes on an intensity of effort, a sharpened concentration on the task at hand that exercises your cognition. You focus in a muscular, purposeful way. You rally your reserves to regain your bearings and figure out where you are.
When you find your way back into familiarity (the premise of this article always assumes that outcome!), you retain the memory muscle that you’d exercised back there in the haze. You carry it forward and are able to access it easier in the future – next time you become lost, for instance. Exercising your focus is like mental calisthenics.
2. Letting go.
Our connection to familiarity and comfort, and our perceived need for them, are overrated. When we physically lose our way, ideally we loosen our hold on that need and potentially become more comfortable with discomfort.
This letting go of the need for comfort serves us in countless ways through life. As we know, life isn’t always comfortable or familiar, and the more we can let go of our attachment to those unchallenging conditions, the better we will be at handling it in the future when life throws us a left hook and we have to adjust. This is about adaptability, rolling with the punches, and making the best out of the hand we are dealt – letting go of insistence on perfection.
3. Raised awareness.
When you are lost, you immediately become more present. You notice things you wouldn’t have noticed before, you take note of details that might have faded into the background when you were more comfortably oriented. You gain awareness of your surroundings because you need that heightened awareness in order to become reoriented.
The thing is, this raised awareness, this heightened presence, enhances our life experience. Like letting go, exercising the awareness muscle continues to pay dividends long after we have found our way back.
4. Appreciation.
Sometimes you don’t appreciate something until you’ve lost it. That axiom applies here. There is no better way to engendering appreciation for the comforts and positive aspects of your life than by losing them, even temporarily. When you’re out there unable to find your way, a magical thing happens: you gain a deeper appreciation for the things you love and treasure. You can’t wait to get back to them, and when you do – when you finally find your way back – you may find yourself emotionally grateful to reconnect with your loved ones and comforts of home.
Ideally, we would feel this gratitude every day, in our routine lives. But getting lost and finding our way again has a way of notching up our appreciation for life and all its joys and pleasures.
5. Finding yourself.
Getting lost shows you who you are. It forces you to reckon with yourself, look yourself in the proverbial mirror and face some hard truths. You only truly find out who you are by facing challenge and pushing through discomfort. When things are nice and comfortable, we relax and coast. It’s great, but we don’t grow in those moments.
Deep down, we are truly who we are when dealing with crisis and adversity. That’s what losing our way is. A time of challenge, of momentary crisis, in which we have to draw from deep inside in order to remain calm and figure our way out. In the process, we find out who we are.
Getting Lost, Finding Yourself
So try it. Get lost, artfully. That is, open up the possibility to freely wander without knowing where you’re going or where you’ll end up.
Of course, this is not a recommendation to meander off a trail and get in trouble. Rather, it’s a gentle recommendation to perhaps leave the GPS at home sometimes, and resist pre-planning your route. Just go, without direction. See where your feet lead you.
Getting lost is the only way to truly find yourself.
