How full is your life bus?

By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Counselor.

Life is a lot like a bus ride.

A metaphor I frequently use for my own life is how it has resembled a bus ride. Throughout life, as we ride along, people get on the bus, and they get off the bus. The longer you ride life’s bus, the emptier it gets.

Did you start life with a full busload of people?

If your life has been anything like mine, and the lives of most other people I know, you started with some people riding the bus with you. Initially, you probably had a mother, a father, and maybe some grandparents. Unless you were the first or only child, you had older siblings, brothers, and/or sisters.

Did you start your life journey on an empty bus?

Some people begin life on a close to empty bus. You might’ve grown up in a home with a single mother or father or been raised by a grandparent or even a nonrelative. When you were first born, there may have been other people in the home taking the ride of life with you. But some of those people may have gotten off your bus even before you were old enough to remember them.

When you went to school more people came into your life.

When you begin school, other people come into your life. I remember going to kindergarten and first grade. I made some new friends. Then we moved, and those early friends left my life. The more you move, the more people come and go, and the fewer people ride through life with you.

Sometimes, people get off the bus, and you never see them again.

Typically, the first people to get off the bus are grandparents or great-grandparents if you are fortunate enough to have had the chance to meet them. Gradually, other older relatives exit your life. Sometimes, one or even both of your parents leave your life. When people leave because of death, you don’t see them again, at least not in this life.

Sometimes, people come back into your life.

Sometimes, a person who has ridden partway on the journey of life comes back into your life. I moved several times and more than once ended up meeting people at another school that I had gone to school with earlier. Sometimes, you are disconnected or alienated from a parent or grandparent and reconnect later in your life. Some people even reconnect with an old boyfriend or girlfriend from back in the day. It can be a very happy occasion when you reconnect with someone. But sometimes, you only reconnect for a short ride.

The people around you may keep changing.

One constant in life seems to be the way people come into your life and exit it. Some people you share the ride of life with are a joy to be around. Some people are a real pain. Well, you know what I mean.

Changing the route you travel in life means you ride with other people.

Family members may move away. You may get into relationships, and you may get out of them. Close friends may die or move away. Moving because of work changes your social circle. If you stop riding the same route, work a different job, or attend a different school, you probably lost contact with old friends forever.

As you get towards the end of the line, the bus gets empty.

One of the great challenges of accumulating more miles on your journey, adding more years to life’s tally, is that the life bus gets emptier. It takes a lot of effort to stay connected to other people. Unless you periodically invite more people to share your life’s journey, you may find yourself driving the bus all alone.

One way to avoid the loneliness that comes from traveling through life all alone is to make an extra effort at every stop to invite other people into your life. Sometimes, it pays to greet them at the bus stop and invite them to join you in your travels.

Making new friends and keeping your life full of companions requires a particular set of skills we call “making friends.” Whether you’re good at making friends or it’s a challenge, you must continue adding people to your life. Having friends and a support system is the best cure for loneliness. Loneliness is, after all, the result of having many people leave your life but not being able to invite more people to join you on the next leg of your life journey.

More on the topic of making and keeping friends can be found at: Friends

Does David Joel Miller see clients for counseling and coaching?

Yes, I do. I can see private pay clients if they live in California, where I am licensed. If you’re interested in information about that, please email me or use the contact me form.

Recently, I began working with a telehealth company called Grow Therapy. If you’d like to make an appointment to work with me, contact them, and they can do the required paperwork and show you my available appointments. The link for making an appointment to talk with me is: David Joel Miller, LMFT, LPCC 

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