We all get lost sometimes.

Lost. This word connects us. We have all suffered loss and we’ve all been lost.

I remember going on a camping trip with my grade five class. I had never camped before. Being from a Chinese immigrant family, camping wasn’t a huge part of our ethnic tradition. I had seen pictures of campers and heard that people went camping, but I really didn’t know what the experience of camping was. But it sounded like fun.

The first activity was called orientation, meant to teach you how to navigate in the woods. We were told to follow the map, record in our notebooks the markers specifically planted along the way and meet everyone back at camp in half an hour.

For the first few minutes, I was feeling good, seeing the markers I was supposed to see. One path had me going into the woods. Unperturbed, I forged ahead. All of sudden, I was disoriented and couldn’t figure out where I was. I was surrounded by tall trees and thick bush.

Sudden panic set in. My throat constricted and my heart beat faster. I started running, pushing aside branches that kept slapping me in my face. I felt the trees closing in. I was running blind but I didn’t care.

An irrational voice kept repeating in my head, “I’m going to die! I’m going to die! I’m going to die!”

Eventually I heard other people’s voices. I ran towards the sounds of people and life. I grabbed any root and branch I could get my hands on to haul me up the slope of a hill. I frantically pulled and climbed until I emerged from the trees and rejoined the others.

I hated that experience. That feeling of being lost was and still is overwhelming.

I now know that I wasn’t really lost. I was always close to camp and the area for orientation was not so big that somebody wouldn’t have eventually found me. But, that is hindsight talking. At the time, I felt lost. And my emotional memories of that day overshadow all other feelings.

Even today, whenever I get that initial feeling of not knowing where I am or where I should be, I remember that moment as a 10-year-old girl in the woods and I go into panic mode. Sometimes I get a panicky lost feeling even in a civilized place, like a mall parking lot when I can’t find the car, or at a meeting when I don’t know anybody.

I’m sure new students reading this know what I’m talking about. It’s your first time on campus. You don’t know where anything is. You don’t know what building you’re in. You haven’t met anyone you care to be friends with.

I bet some of you are probably wondering why you’re even here. You’re not alone. At some point, seniors, grad students even some faculty wonder the raison d’être of being and working on campus.

We feel lost for many reasons. One is because we don’t know where we are. We feel lost because our surroundings are unfamiliar. We don’t recognize the landmarks, the signs that say we’re home or we’re safe. This is true especially when we travel to new places, whether that be a foreign country or just in a strange part of the city. Unfamiliarity of our physical surroundings makes us feel lost.

Second, we feel lost because we don’t have a sense of direction. We know where we are, but we don’t know how to get where we need to go. Which way should I go? Should I go up? Down? North? South? Left? Right? In? Out? Ignorance, lack of knowledge both contribute to our sense of lostness. If we knew which direction to take, I’m sure we’d take it. Often, tools are helpful in these situations, for example, a map, a GPS, a compass. But, to be directionless certainly feeds our sense of lostness.

Third, we feel lost when we don’t know where we’re going. We have no destination, no place to go. That can be scary or it can be freeing. It’s a matter of perspective or personality.

Or, we have a destination, but we wonder whether that destination is worth it. I remember planning a huge trip to Italy last year. I’ve always wanted to go to Italy and the possibility was always there for me. But, when possibility met with reality and decision to go, I started questioning would Italy be worth it. I sometimes doubted the time, money, energy it took to plan and prepare for the trip would yield great memories, experiences and stories.

I guess you just need to trust sometimes. Being lost is no fun. Staying lost is deadlier.

Nancy Yee is the ecumenical chaplain. Her office is in the Memorial Union Building and she tweets @ChaplainNancy.

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image: Ecumenical Chaplaincy