'One Step Forward (How Many Steps Back)': going forward and still nowhere

 
In an earlier blog, I briefly introduced my new series 'One Step Forward (How Many Steps Back)' and how, to me at least, it reflects life as it just comes and goes along. That, no matter how hard you try to move forward, there is always something that seems to either hold you back. Or, when you finally have made that bold move forward, you face all kinds of setback, preferably not one, and not just a couple, but a whole bunch. At.the.same.time.

The optimists amongst us will refer to these setbacks as ''challenges'', most of us call it ''obstacles''. I prefer to see them as hills you must climb or find another way around them - either way, you have to deal with them, before they turn into steep cliffs that are almost impossible to conquer. Unless, your mind has the resilience and the ability of a skilled boulderclimber.

On the other hand, sometimes those dreaded setbacks, that feeling of ''one step forward and then two, or three, or even more steps back'' might just turn out to be very valuable experiences, as they actually buy you time. Even at moments you feel there isn't any and you have to make split-second decisions under huge pressure. Ofcourse, sometimes, there will be moments like these and you just have to go with ever decision or choice seems best in that particular situation- but more often than not, you have more time than you think.

I have learned the extremely hard way that being thrown back a couple of rounds, is not the worst thing to have happened to me, even when I felt terribly frustrated because I desperately wanted to move forward with certain things. I have found out that every setback actually helped me forward in the end, even when at the time I felt I was getting nowhere. I have discovered that with every throwback came time to think things over before rushing ahead.

Time, in which I learnt that the bold move forward for me actually wasn't such a good move at all. That, because of pure pressure and feelings of anxiety, despair even, I'd completely lost track of which direction I was heading into and had not even questioned myself on WHY I was going there. That taking one step forward and then two or three steps back made me realise that I wasn't just going in a less favourable or even wrong direction. I was worse off. I was boldly but blindly going nowhere. 

It's that insight, or rather: the whole process of getting there, that prompted me to start this particular series. Featuring, once again, a rodent-like anti-hero trying to come to terms with the whole phenomenon of going forwards and then backwards; and forward, only to find he's basically stuck, unless he admits he needs to take a step back, or two or more, to see where he's at - and which direction he should or should not take. 

And it's when you refuse to acknowledge that, that you find yourself in the position you wanted to avoid at all costs: stuck as stuck can be. Not able to go ahead, because you don't have the willpower to step back and take a look at where you are going.

It's that you will ask yourself: ''One Step Forward ... How Many Steps Back?''

So, instead of always rushing ahead, stepping back actually can be a good thing. Because if you don't do it yourself, and actually make the time to do so, that Sweet Little Bitch called Life will do it for you.

Trust me, she will. She most definitely will.