I’ve been there. Stuck. It’s that despondent feeling that you have to put up with a life situation because change is too difficult to even contemplate. As a young parent, I was stuck. I didn’t drive.
Struggling In Winter Weather.
I used a stroller to push my toddler through the snow to daycare before hopping on a bus and a subway to get to work. The stroller’s wheels often froze in slush or got jammed in ruts of ice. Doctor’s appointments meant manoeuvring a sick child in a stroller on and off the crowded city bus. At a subway station, I’d hope for a kind stranger to offer to take the bottom of the stroller to help me up the long flight of stairs. Until I experienced being a working mom, I’d always been a walker and public transit person. I’d never considered driving.
My perspective changed
Looking back, it seems incredible that it took me 4 years to figure a way out. I realize now, that we often don’t see the answers to our problems when we’re busy being stuck.
It took the calmness of the summer holidays for my mind to relax enough to find a way out of my situation. I’d never even considered learning to drive because I didn’t have access to the car. And then it dawned on me. I remember walking into the house after our vacation and thinking, ‘I have a job. I can buy my own car.’ It was a simple solution that had never occurred to me until then.
The Ah-ha Moment
The car was all that I needed to get unstuck and motivate myself to learn to drive. It was the thought that led to signing up for driving lessons, sitting in a class of 16 year olds, taking driving instruction on the weekends and finally passing my tests. It was difficult to do in my thirties but such a joyful feeling when I drove home in my own car.** It was the freedom of being unstuck.
When we get stuck, we often wait for external change to happen. But change doesn’t happen to us, it comes from within us. Change is scary and painful, but it’s also necessary for getting unstuck. And when that happens, many opportunities open up.*
By Patricia Harteneck, Ph.D., Psychology Today, December 1, 2016
*Click here to read some ideas about how to get unstuck.
**I acknowledge my privilege and I am grateful that my life situation enabled me to afford to buy a car.
What lead to your change in perspective and nudged you out of being stuck? Comment below.
Retired, And Now What? 
I think if we don’t pay attention to the ‘nudges’ we get a good kick or big push and the landing is more challenging to recover from.
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It is certainly easier to change gradually over time than to make those big changes all at once.
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