When the network is congested, the transaction you send is actually queued in the mempool, like a bunch of orders hanging at the entrance of a takeout restaurant, with miners/packagers choosing to prioritize those with higher tips.

What you see is not "stuck," but rather that it's not your turn yet, or someone else has outbid you to cut in line (sometimes the same transaction gets replaced by a higher fee).

I usually focus on two things: whether the estimated base fee is skyrocketing, and what my maximum willing-to-pay priority fee is; if it's not enough, I simply cancel and resend, instead of forcing it through.
Especially recently, with Meme and celebrity shoutouts causing attention shifts, congestion feels more like rush hour on the subway—trying to rush in might just be helping others get ahead...
Veterans' advice of "don't take the last baton" is not unnecessary.
Anyway, I only handle transactions where I can clearly calculate the slippage and the risk of failure.