Move Forward or Move Back

Been thinking about a phrase I heard a while ago, one that seems personally relevant right now: If you aren’t moving ahead you’re moving back. In other words, there ain’t no standing still. Either progress, or regress. Yeah, you can stop and smell the roses, but only for a minute, no more. You got to keep advancing, my friend, keep getting better, or you’ll get beat.

Is this true?

I’m sorry to say, I think it is. But why am I sorry to say it? I’m in a bad spot in my life right now, one that could have been avoided with prudential change (moving forward / getting better / “progress”) at any of a number of points in the recent past. So, in hindsight, I wish I wasn’t where I am now with the choices confronting me currently.

But must you always move forward, or else move back?

It seems an awfully tiresome expression to me. Yet those with the “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” mentality are the ones becoming successful, earning the money, getting their projects done, moving up in the world.

Wait a minute. Maybe the unsettling-ness of that expression, to me at least, lies in a couple of words in that previous paragraph. Words like “successful” and “money” and “world.” This is all so draining to me, but something’s calling me to work through this.

As most should know, there are many definitions of success. Some are worthy and some fall short, whether apparent or not. I think I’m on the right path. To me, “success” is not a mansion or fine cars or a couple million in the bank. Money is not part of the equation (though the daily grind of paying ever-growing bills with shrinking salaries is something quite serious that will have to be addressed). Nor is the world. I care little for recognition and would preferably pursue my dreams in anonymity if possible.

You have to move ahead, or move back. I think the reason that expression, true as it may be, does not sit well lies in the ‘moving ahead.’ The movement. We can be in a constant, consistent state of reacting to the world, to the problems, the ups and down, the opportunities, reacting, reacting, reacting, and it all is so, so tiring. That’s the trap I think I’ve fallen into. But, there is an alternative.

There is?

Yes. Instead of reacting to the external world, why not shape it? Why not create it? Create a future that is not reactionary and dreadfully tiring.

Yes. See, now I fell a little bit better.

I know exactly how I want to be in the near future. I know what I want to be, do, and have. And I realize that none of it will magically materialize; I have to work hard to make it my new reality. I have to move forward to chisel out that new reality, that self-created reality, or else move backward and remain in the un-chosen world that’s my current life, reacting and responding to other people and other situations, a pawn on a chessboard and not the man moving the pieces.