A maze is a puzzle in which there is only one route that leads to an exit.*
While travelling your path, you encounter many situations where at least one choice must be made of which way to go. There is no straight path that leads from entrance to exit.
In some cases, there is only one choice: the path you are on reaches a dead end, and you must turn or go back to the first open path available.
The path through the maze is long, circuitous, confusing, and frustrating, especially if it is a real, physical maze made of dense hedges that are taller than your own height.
If you have a poor sense of direction and no reference points within the maze or overhead, you can become lost and in serious trouble, because the way back to where you started is just as difficult to find as the way out. Unless you made fresh footprints, unrolled a ball of string behind you, or left a trail of visible objects, you need guidance from overhead, or perhaps a solution to the maze that is shown on your smartphone to get out.
If you are like me, even when you get back to the starting point, it looks different from the way it looked before, and you still have the perception of disorientation, which is extremely uncomfortable.
Some of us should never attempt going through a complex physical maze, even with a companion. In the maze of our life experience, most of us need a map, drawn by someone who succeeded in finding a way through to an exit.
Or you could just hack your way through with an axe or machete–although it defeats the purpose of the learning experience, some people choose this method of dealing with their challenges.
*We all hope that life is not like that, and each of us hopes that there is more than one route leading to the desired exit. IS there? It depends on who designed the maze, and for what purpose.