Daily Motivator Special Feature
Moving forward
by Ralph Marston
Have you ever had this sensation when riding a train (or bus, for that matter)? You’re sitting in your seat on the train, looking out the window at another train that’s next to you. Both trains are standing still. Suddenly, you sense movement. You feel yourself moving backward. But in reality, you’re not. Your train continues to stand still. The reason you feel yourself moving backward is because the train next to you, the one you see out the window, has started to move forward. Yet it feels for all the world like you are moving, and the way you feel like you’re moving is backward.
Actually, in relation to the other train, you are moving backward. Motion, after all, is a relative thing. When you’re jetting along in an aircraft at 30,000 feet, you and the passenger next to you, along with your iPad and your cup of ginger ale, are zipping along at more than 500 miles per hour relative to the ground. However, those things in your immediate vicinity (the iPad, the other passenger, etc.) are moving right along with you, so they don’t seem to be moving at all.
The nature of a train is to move. That’s what it’s for. Yes, it has to stop to pick up and drop off passengers. However, its job is to be in motion. Life is the same way. By its very nature, life is always in motion. By its very definition, in fact. The way you can tell if something is alive, whether plant or animal, is to look for signs of movement and change. If it’s not moving or not growing, it’s not alive.
There are two fundamental choices in life. You can either move forward or you can move backward. Standing still and just staying where you are is not really an option. If you attempt to do that, you get left behind and you do in fact end up moving backward.
That doesn’t mean you must go along with every crazy “new and improved” thing that every person and organization does. What it does mean is that you must find a way to make positive progress on your own terms. Life is inherently dynamic and to full experience the best life has to offer, you must be dynamic too. If you attempt to just stay where you are, you’ll look out the window and feel yourself moving backward.
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