It's Either Forward or Backward

I love this picture of the helmet from my motorcycle crash in 2018. There is so much to see in the image.

Most obvious is the “Good things come from hard times,” self-help cliche; but just because it’s cliche doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Humans are unbelievably resilient, and it’s always good to be reminded that you can come back from the unthinkable.

Resilience is inspiring, but the image also shows how life moves on - always - and we can choose to move with it or not. We can either crawl forward towards the light or remain the broken face shield; but there is no standing still. To live is to move, and we’re either going to move forward with intent or slip backwards as we let life leave us. Stasis is not an option.

We can come back from almost anything, but that’s not the same as “going back.” Sometimes you can’t go back after what happened, and that’s ok — and those are the times when it is most important to keep moving forward.

The good news is, it takes so little to keep the forward movement going. You could start by just going to bed having learned something you didn’t know at the start of the day. That’s enough.

Speed is irrelevant. Amount is irrelevant. Mobilization is everything. Martin Luther King Jr. put it best when he said, “If you can’t fly, then run. If you can’t run, then walk. If you can’t walk, then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”