You may be thinking about therapy because something in your life feels unsettled. Perhaps you’re asking deeper questions – about your relationships, your identity, your work, or the path you’ve found yourself on. Maybe there’s a sense of meaninglessness creeping in, or a quiet ache that your life isn’t aligned with your values. You might not know exactly what’s wrong, only that something inside you is asking for attention.

If you’re here, it’s likely because you’re wondering:

• Is this it?
• Can something shift?
• Is it possible to feel more alive, more whole, more real?

These are the kinds of questions that bring people to existential therapy. Not just how to cope – but how to live. How to be. And how to make meaning, even when the path forward feels uncertain. This moment – where something within you is urging you to pause and look closer – is a powerful one. It can also feel like you’ve been swept along by forces beyond your control.

I was recently rewatching The Good Place. It’s a complex show where emotions and decisions and hijinks all collide in a non-religious show about moral philosophy and the afterlife. It also engages the famous ethical thought experiment: the trolley problem. In its classic form, the trolley problem asks you to imagine standing beside a track. A runaway trolley is headed toward five people who are tied up and unable to move. You can pull a lever to divert the trolley to another track, where only one person is tied up. Do you pull the lever?

It’s a moral dilemma that reveals how people think about sacrifice, responsibility, and the weight of action versus inaction. I began wondering if the metaphor could be useful to help people think about their own change in a therapeutic context. What if the trolley represents time?

Time as the Unstoppable Trolley

Time, like the trolley, is always moving forward. You can’t stop it. You can’t jump in front of it. You can’t slow it down. It doesn’t ask your permission. It just comes.

When people hesitate to start therapy, they’re often frozen by the momentum of time. “It’s been like this for years,” they might say. Or, “I should have done this sooner.”

But here’s the thing: You can’t go back and reroute the past. However, you can decide where the track goes from here. Therapy doesn’t let you stop the trolley, but it does help you reach for the lever.

What Track Are You On?

Sometimes, people come to therapy already feeling like they’re on a track they didn’t choose. Maybe it’s shaped by trauma, illness, family patterns, loss, or disappointment. Time has carried them forward, but not in a direction they feel good about.

The image of a runaway trolley captures this sensation perfectly. You’re standing there watching the consequences pile up – at work, in your relationships, in your sense of self. It can feel like there’s no point in trying to shift anything now. But that assumption often misses a crucial truth: your current position might feel fixed, but the next moment isn’t.

Therapy as the Lever

If the trolley is time, then therapy is not about stopping it – it’s about choosing how you want to steer. In other words, therapy helps you:

• Understand the track you’re on
• Identify what you’re heading toward
• Learn where the levers are (and how to use them)
• Accept that while you can’t change the trolley’s speed, you can influence its direction

Maybe you’ve been on autopilot for years. Maybe you’ve made choices based on survival, not desire. Maybe you are only now realizing you’ve had your hand near a lever all along.

Therapy can help make those levers visible. Especially in existential therapy, the focus often turns to the fundamental structures of human experience: freedom, responsibility, meaning, isolation, and mortality. These aren’t just abstract ideas – they show up in daily decisions, emotional struggles, and how we make sense of our lives.

The Cost of Not Acting Is Still a Choice

In the trolley problem, not pulling the lever is itself a decision. It may feel passive, but it has consequences. The same is true with emotional health. If you’re feeling disconnected, burnt out, or stuck in painful patterns, choosing not to act doesn’t make those problems go away. It just lets them keep unfolding on their current track.

Existential therapy invites clients to confront what Viktor Frankl called the “existential vacuum” – that sense of meaninglessness or numbness that can creep in when we lose connection with our values. Therapy helps you explore that void not as a dead end, but as a space of potential.

What Are You Willing to Steer Toward?

Part of the discomfort in starting therapy is that it forces us to admit I want something different:

• More peace.
• More connection.
• More purpose.
• Less anxiety.
• Less reactivity.
• Less pain.

Admitting that you want something different is vulnerable. Because it opens the door to disappointment, hard work, and the unknown. It might mean you take responsibility and ownership of something. It’s also the first act of agency. It’s seeing the lever and realizing, “I can do something because I choose to.”

Even if it’s scary.

Even if you don’t know exactly where the other track leads.

Existential therapy emphasizes authenticity and choice. An intervention like “existential confrontation” might gently challenge the stories you tell yourself – stories that keep you stuck in patterns of avoidance, indecision, or guilt. It’s not about judgment; it’s about waking up to your freedom and your responsibility.

You’re Not Too Late

Many people fear that it’s too late to make meaningful change. That the damage is done, the habits are set, and the opportunities are missed. But if the trolley is time, then the most important question isn’t “how far have I come down this track?” It’s “What happens next?”

Time will keep moving. So will your relationships. Your work. Your body. Your kids. Your sense of self. You can’t stop the motion, but you can shape the journey. If you’ve felt too passive or out of control, you’re allowed to begin shaping it whenever you are ready.

In existential therapy, this is sometimes called “future-oriented meaning-making” – the idea that even if we cannot rewrite the past, we can actively write what comes next. This might involve exploring your personal values, redefining your purpose, or practicing what Rollo May called “the courage to be.”

When the Track Affects Others

For many, the decision to start therapy is not just about their own well-being. It’s about what their emotional path is doing to the people around them: partners, children, friends, coworkers, etc. If you are carrying unresolved pain or inherited patterns, it might mean you’re not the only one riding the trolley. It also sometimes means others are tied to the track. A therapist can help you tease out the nuances of whose impact you might want to prioritize, as well as when not to.

That doesn’t mean therapy is about rescuing or fixing others. It’s often about becoming more conscious of how your own choices ripple outward. Healing yourself first often means offering others a different kind of ride.

Existential therapy holds that we are ultimately alone, AND also deeply connected. This paradox is central: we are responsible for ourselves, and yet the meaning we create often comes through relationships.

Steering Often Takes Time Even When You’re Already on the Trolley

One misconception about therapy is that it’s supposed to provide immediate solutions. In reality, it’s more like learning how to read a complicated map while the train is in motion. There will be curves, delays, and foggy sections where you can’t see what’s coming.

But with each session, you become more familiar with the terrain. With each insight, the lever becomes easier to recognize. With each decision, your direction becomes a little more intentional.

An existential therapist might work with you to explore how you relate to uncertainty.

• How do you handle not knowing?
• How do you move forward anyway?

This can be part of existential exploration, where you reflect on your identity not as something fixed, but as something unfolding.

Final Thought: You’re Already in Motion. Make It Meaningful.

You are already riding the trolley. Time is already moving. Your life is already unfolding.

The question is not whether to start. You already have. The question is: Are YOU steering?

Therapy won’t give you a different past. But it can help you pull the lever toward a more conscious, connected, and intentional future. If you’ve been wondering whether it’s worth it, whether it’s too late, whether anything can really change – consider this your invitation to reach for the lever.

You’re not too late.

You’re right on time.

If you’re ready to talk more about your track, your levers, or even just where to begin, please reach out. Your future is still unfolding and you don’t have to navigate it alone.

Written by: Daniel Stillwell, Ph.D., LMFT

Daniel Stillwell (he/him) is the Clinical Director and a Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT) at the South Asheville branch of Matone Counseling. He has an LMFT in North Carolina and is a nationally credentialed (AAMFT) MFT supervisor. After receiving his masters in MFT from Louisville Seminary, he went on to earn a PhD in Family Therapy from Saint Louis University. He has practiced on and off since 2008, spending several years also as a professor of MFT for different universities. His passions for client care and organizational leadership are a great match for Matone Counseling and he has been delighted to be a part of the team since 2019.