Stuck!

I help people live their dreams and navigate the changes required to do so. Sometimes those changes are big. Sometimes with just the slightest adjustment, away we go!  It’s glorious to watch. Living our dreams requires an understanding of where we’re “stuck” in life.  On a basic level, I help people get unstuck. It strikes me that some people might not really connect to the meaning of that. What does it mean to be stuck?

I’ve read hundreds of books on the subject. I read everything I come across, never knowing what gems inside the cover may really speak to a person. An aspect of my work that I really enjoy is recommending they read a book every now and then; the recommended titles just jump out at me during our conversations. Sometimes books call out to the people who are meant to read them; I truly believe they’re sentient beings, infused with the consciousness of the writers, editors, publishers, and book sellers devoted to their inception and evolution.

The most recent book I’m reading is called, “Stuck: Why we can’t (or won’t) move on” by Anneli Rufus. I can’t really recommend it at this point because I’m only on page 15, but the introduction really grabbed me. Sometimes the most simplistic delivery packs a powerful punch. The author was waxing poetic about her stuckness, and then she added this little blurb:

Who else is stuck?

• My friend who spends six hours a day at eBay.
• My other friend who keeps moving from town to town, endlessly starting over.
• My relative who always arrives late.
• My other relative who spends way too much money.
• Sam, who can no longer fit into the driver’s seat of his candy-wrapper-strewn Honda.
• Jake, who procrastinates.
• Paul, who still feels the shock wave from the grenade every time he closes his eyes.
• Caroline, who has been in grad school, off and on, for thirty years.
• Kathy, with track marks down her arm.
• Alex, who hands out conspiracy-theory flyers on the corner.
• Teresa, who makes plans and always cancels them.
• Dale, with his drawerful of maxed-out credit cards.
• Morgan, who looks sheepish and lights another cigarette.

Can you relate? Did any of your own stuckness jump out at you while reading her examples? Did you find a ticker-tape running across your mind of all your friends and loved ones who are also stuck within their own stories?

We all get stuck. We all have difficulty moving on throughout our lives. Sometimes we need each other to temporarily see more clearly.