Waking Up as a Passenger: Reflections For Men Feeling Lost In Life

Imagine waking up on a train with no memory of how you got there. You don't know where it departed from or where it's heading. All you know is that you're a passenger, watching the world blur past your window.

Do you walk to the front to see where you're going? Ask the conductor about your destination? Or do you sink back into your seat and let the journey unfold around you?

Many men I work with as a psychotherapist find themselves in exactly this situation—not literally on a train, but metaphorically in life. They're beginning to realize they've been passengers for most of their adult lives, letting life happen to them rather than actively living it.

Of course, no one sits down in my office and says this directly. Instead, I hear familiar refrains:

• "I don't know what I want."

• "I feel like I lack confidence and can't make decisions."

• "I feel lonely and disconnected, even from people I'm supposed to be close to."

Sometimes they can't even articulate the problem clearly. They're simply there because someone important to them—a spouse, parent, or friend—suggested they needed help.

When the Problem Is What's Missing

Most therapy focuses on solving specific problems: managing anxiety, working through depression, improving relationships. We address what's wrong and work to fix it.

But working with someone who's been a "passenger" is different. We're not dealing with something that's broken—we're dealing with something that was never fully developed. The challenge isn't removing a problem; it's building something that's been missing.

How do you help someone become more confident when they've never learned what confidence feels like? How do you teach decisiveness to someone who's spent their life avoiding decisions? It's like asking someone to paint a sunset when they've only ever been given black and white paint.

This is often why many men don't stick with therapy long. Both therapist and client can feel lost, not knowing where to start. The frustration builds until the person throws up their hands and declares that "therapy doesn't work."

The Unreliable Narrator

One of the most striking things about passengers is how little they remember about their childhood and family life. It's not that traumatic things necessarily happened—though sometimes they did. More often, it's that not much happened emotionally at all.

Many grew up in homes where feelings weren't discussed, where showing emotion was discouraged, or where they learned early that being "easy" and not causing trouble was the safest way to exist. When emotions aren't acknowledged or expressed, they don't form strong memories. It's like trying to recall a movie you watched with the sound off—the details just aren't there.

This makes it difficult to understand how someone ended up as a passenger. They often defend their upbringing as "perfectly normal" and insist their parents did their best. The problem isn't necessarily bad parenting, but rather an absence—a lack of emotional engagement, curiosity about who they were becoming, or encouragement to develop their own voice.

The Anger That Went Underground

One pattern I see repeatedly is men who have completely disconnected from their anger. When I mention anger as a normal, healthy emotion, they look at me like I've suggested something dangerous.

Often, there was someone in their childhood home—frequently a father—whose anger was frightening, explosive, or destructive. Or maybe home was peaceful, but school was a place where bullies lurked around every corner, and teachers could be just as unfair and cruel. Watching this, the child learned that anger was dangerous and needed to be avoided at all costs. They became experts at "keeping the peace" and going with the flow.

But here's the thing about anger: it's actually essential information. Anger tells us when our boundaries are being crossed and when we're not getting something that matters to us. It's like a smoke detector for our emotional well-being.

When we completely suppress anger, we lose touch with what's important to us. We stop knowing what we want or need because we've trained ourselves not to care enough to get upset when we don't get it. We just shrug and convince ourselves it wasn't that important anyway.

The suppressed anger doesn't disappear—it goes underground. It shows up as passive-aggressive behavior, harsh self-criticism, or destructive habits. But because it's been pushed down for so long, many passengers don't even recognize it's there.

The "Do It For Me" Paradox

Another hallmark of the passenger experience is a complex relationship with help. On one hand, there's often a deep sense of helplessness—a feeling of "I don't know how to do this" about many aspects of life. On the other hand, when someone tries to help, there's resistance and frustration.

What follows is a confusing dynamic: asking for help while simultaneously rejecting it.

This pattern often develops in childhood when someone else (usually a parent) consistently stepped in to handle things instead of allowing the child to struggle, learn, and master skills themselves. Maybe the parent was impatient, or worried about the child making mistakes, or simply found it easier to do things themselves.

Without opportunities to practice and fail and try again, children don't develop confidence in their ability to figure things out. They learn to expect someone else to handle the difficult stuff, but they also resent needing that help.

What makes this even more complex is a deep terror of appearing incompetent. Many passengers will go to great lengths to avoid any situation where they might not know what they're doing or might look foolish while learning. They'd rather not try at all than risk the shame of being bad at something.

This fear of incompetence becomes a prison. It keeps them from learning new skills, taking on challenges, or putting themselves in unfamiliar situations. They become experts at staying within the narrow bounds of what they already know they can handle, which only reinforces their sense that they're incapable of growth.

In therapy, this shows up as wanting the therapist to "fix" them while simultaneously arguing with suggestions. It's not stubbornness—it's the collision between learned helplessness, a buried desire for independence, and terror at the thought of fumbling through something new where others might witness their inexperience.

The Comfort Trap

How does someone live as a passenger? How do they navigate school, work, relationships, and all of life's demands?

The answer is by becoming extremely skilled at staying comfortable and avoiding anything that feels uncertain or challenging. Passengers become experts at the path of least resistance.

The problem is that growth only happens in discomfort. It's impossible to develop confidence, decisiveness, or authentic connections while staying in your comfort zone.

Think about any story of personal transformation you know—whether it's from literature, movies, or real life. The person always has to leave what's familiar and safe to become who they're meant to be. Luke had to leave Tatooine. Frodo had to leave the Shire. Neo had to leave the Matrix.

But passengers resist this journey. When life presents them with challenges or opportunities that would require growth, they find ways to avoid them. They stay in jobs that don't fulfill them, relationships that don't challenge them, and routines that don't inspire them—all because these things are known and predictable.

The Moment of Choice

In every transformative story, there's a moment when the hero must make an active choice to face what's challenging them. In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo volunteers to carry the ring to Mount Doom. In The Matrix, Neo chooses the red pill over the blue pill. It's a moment of stepping forward rather than stepping back.

Most passengers resist this moment with everything they have. They've spent so long avoiding discomfort that the idea of voluntarily choosing it feels impossible. They want to go back to sleep, back to the comfortable numbness of being a passenger.

But here's what I've learned: the train is moving whether you're paying attention or not. Life is happening whether you're actively participating or just letting it wash over you. The only question is whether you want to have a say in where you're going.

Finding Your Way Off the Train

If you recognize yourself in this description, you're already taking the first step—you're waking up. That awareness, even if it's uncomfortable, is the beginning of change.

Here are some questions that might help you understand where you are and where you want to go:

About your inner world:

• When was the last time you felt genuinely excited about something? What was it?

• What situations make you feel most anxious or uncomfortable? What might that tell you about what matters to you?

About your relationships:

• Who in your life knows the real you—your actual thoughts, fears, and dreams?

• When you're frustrated with someone, how do you typically handle it? What would happen if you expressed that frustration directly but kindly?

About your choices:

• What decisions in your life have you made primarily to avoid discomfort or conflict?

• If you knew you couldn't fail, what would you want to try?

About your past:

• What messages did you receive growing up about expressing emotions, having needs, or standing up for yourself?

• Who in your early life did you learn to be "easy" for?

These aren't questions to answer quickly or definitively. They're invitations to start noticing patterns, to begin developing curiosity about your own inner experience.

The goal isn't to dramatically overhaul your entire life overnight. It's to start making small, conscious choices instead of defaulting to whatever feels safest. It's to begin recognizing when you're operating as a passenger and asking yourself: what would it look like to be the conductor of my own life?

Waking up as a passenger can feel disorienting and uncomfortable. But it's also the first step toward a life that's genuinely yours—one where you're not just along for the ride, but actively choosing the destination.