What Stands in the Way Becomes the Way: On Meeting Uncertainty

"What stands in the way becomes the way." - Marcus Aurelius

This is the quote I come back to most often in my work. I share it when someone feels overwhelmed by the future or caught in the pressure to control every outcome. It surfaces in sessions about career decisions, relationship crossroads, major life transitions, or simply the accumulated weight of trying to hold everything together whilst not knowing what comes next.

We try to hold tightly to our plans because we believe certainty will keep us safe. If we can just map out the steps, anticipate the obstacles, prepare for every possibility, then perhaps we can protect ourselves from disappointment or failure. But life does not offer that kind of guarantee. The harder we try to control it, the more anxious and disconnected we feel. We become so fixated on the destination that we lose touch with where we actually are.

This anxiety about the future is not really about the future at all. It is about our relationship with uncertainty itself. When we demand to know how things will unfold before we take a single step, we place ourselves in an impossible position. We wait for a clarity that will never arrive because life simply does not work that way. Meanwhile, the waiting itself becomes paralysing.

Existential therapy invites us to look honestly at the reality that uncertainty is part of being human. We cannot remove it and we cannot predict every turn, but we can choose how we meet it. This is where our freedom begins, not in shaping the world to match our plans, but in recognising that our response is always ours to choose. We can move towards the future with intention without needing to control every variable along the way.

The unknown is not something to fight off. It becomes part of the meaning we create. The unexpected moments, the disruptions, the things we did not plan often become the experiences that shape our story. A conversation we were not expecting to have. A door that closes and forces us to look elsewhere. A challenge that reveals something about ourselves we did not know was there. When we soften the need for certainty, we make space for authenticity. We make space for our lives to unfold in ways that feel true rather than simply safe.

This does not mean abandoning all plans or drifting without direction. It means holding our plans more lightly. It means starting towards something that matters to us whilst remaining open to what we encounter along the way. It means trusting that we can meet what comes, even if we do not yet know what that will be.

This is the heart of the quote for me. It reminds us that the path is formed not by perfect planning but by how we engage with what life places in front of us. What comes our way does not derail us. It becomes the way forward, because we bring ourselves to it. Our values, our capacity to respond, our willingness to keep going even when the route changes. That is where the meaning lives.

Existential Psychotherapy in London

If you recognise yourself in what I have written here, existential therapy might offer a way forward. This approach does not promise to remove uncertainty or fix what feels difficult. Instead, it creates space to explore your relationship with freedom, choice, and the inevitable limits of being human. We look honestly at what matters to you and at how you might engage with your life more authentically.

I am a COSRT and BACP Accredited Psychotherapist working in Blackheath Village, Southeast London. I work with individuals and couples navigating major life transitions, relationship difficulties, and anxiety about the future.