The One Where Everyone Else Did The Navigating

This one will be relatable to anyone with a bad sense of direction. I say this as the self-proclaimed queen of getting lost.

I have no idea how I can be so exceptionally bad at navigating. But I feel like it runs in my family—my sister is just as hopeless as I am. Thankfully, we live in the age of technology, where digital maps are available at our fingertips. If you’re one of those lucky people who can move freely without getting lost, let me describe what it feels like to be me - and what it’s like to live (and walk, drive, or generally exist) with people like me.

When I go somewhere, I usually check the map beforehand. Then I check it again on the way there. And once more, just to be sure. Sometimes I think, “This place is so close to the public transportation stop; surely I can get there without staring at my phone the entire time.” I try. I fail. Inevitably, my nose ends up glued to the screen, watching that little blue dot or arrow move around so I know where to go.

I’m also one of those people who has to rotate the map so it matches the direction I’m walking. My brain simply can’t compute otherwise—or if it does, it takes so long that it’s not worth the effort. And how did people like me survive before the digital age? (Spoiler alert: I’m not that young.) My mum used to print out maps for me and highlight the route from point A to point B - like from a bus stop to my destination. Genius.

Here are some examples of my navigational “skills”:

• Lost in My Own Neighborhood
  When I was little, I got lost in our small housing estate and couldn’t figure out how to get home.
• The Wrong Train Incident
  Another time, my friends and I planned a long trek. My friend and I decided to cut the trek short and join the group later by taking a train to the meeting point. Unfortunately, we got confused at the station, boarded the wrong train, and ended up going in completely the wrong direction.
• The Pond Adventure
  The following year, during the same trek (which I didn’t attend), I promised to pick up my friends with my car afterward. Nervous about driving alone, I brought my sister along for moral support. We decided to take a short detour to visit a nice pond we’d seen on maps. Big mistake! The road wasn’t paved and definitely wasn’t suitable for such a large car. At one point, I had to reverse between two small lakes for what felt like an eternity while my sister navigated me with sheer terror in her eyes—making sure I didn’t accidentally drive into either lake. She still tells this story about how “cool” I looked because I couldn’t see just how close we were to disaster. Technically, this wasn’t entirely our fault—the map app sent us there—but we foolishly decided to proceed anyway. Lesson learned: we survived (along with the car), and now we have a great story.
• The Subway Mishap
  More recently, after an event, a friend and I were transferring trains on the subway - on a line I use daily for work! Feeling confident that nothing could go wrong (ha!), we gave directions to an elderly lady who asked how she could get from the subway station to street level. We confidently sent her in the wrong direction because we mistakenly thought we were on a transfer platform. When we finally surfaced onto the street ourselves, we realized our mistake. To this day, I hope that poor old lady isn’t still wandering around underground looking for an exit.

When someone walks with me (like my husband - who is still learning how to deal with this), they usually have to navigate for me. Most people around me are already accustomed to this; they’ll simply point me in the right direction or physically turn me toward where we need to go without much discussion. It’s not even a topic anymore unless something major happens - like one of these stories.

To make matters worse, when someone else is guiding me, I completely switch off any awareness of my surroundings—which is actually pretty bad. It’s also embarrassing when someone asks, “Did you see that?” and all I can say is, “What?” It’s like having a superpower… but one of super incompetence instead. Over time, though, I've learned how to live with it.

Why Some People Struggle With Spatial Awareness

Spatial awareness is your ability to understand where you are in relation to the world around you. It’s what helps you judge distances, avoid obstacles, and figure out how to get from point A to point B. For some people, this skill is second nature - they just “know” where they are and where to go. For others (like me), it’s a constant challenge that often ends in hilarious or frustrating stories.

So why do some of us struggle? Here are a few reasons:

• Brain Wiring: Some people’s brains aren’t naturally wired for strong spatial reasoning. It’s just how we’re built!
• Lack of Practice: If you always rely on GPS or others to guide you (guilty), your brain doesn’t get much exercise in building mental maps or navigating.
• Stress or Anxiety: Ever noticed how getting lost feels even worse when you’re panicking? Stress can mess with your ability to focus and process spatial information.
• Conditions or Impairments: Things like ADHD or poor depth perception can make navigation and spatial tasks harder.

The good news? You can improve! Practice using landmarks instead of staring at your phone, play games like Tetris or navigation-based video games, or simply pay more attention to your surroundings when walking or driving. Small steps like these can help even the most directionally challenged among us (yes, I’m looking at myself) feel a little less lost.