A step backwards?
We are always told that life should be all about moving forwards on a journey and enjoy every part of the process, but it is rarely that direct, it is not just a winding road, it is road planner's twist nightmare of dead ends, counterfactual roundabout and inverted flows, and there is no map that is going to help as the terrain of our lives looks different for every one of us. That is if we are even luck enough to be on a path that is going anywhere in the first place, a lot of us are still stuck in the mud field that is the starting point of our journey, moving anywhere, let alone forwards is an improvement in many people's life. If that means taking a backward step out of the mud that is the best action you can take, it might feel like a defeat but it is momentum and that is worth it's weight in gold to someone who has stop moving anywhere.
We are not given clear instruction as to what we should be doing, what direction we need to take, we have vague notions of what a life well lived might look like, we have checklists, bucket lists, magazines that show us someone else's dream of what their life looks like on a perfect day, we might not believe that the glossy pictures are entirely the truth, but that does not stop us from feeling like we are missing out on something. Everyone else's life looks so much better from the other side of the street, two perfect kids that have insomia, a perfect career that means working a hundred hours a week, a perfect partner that cheats, you can only know the truth by living their lives, there is not a perfect life out there but that does not mean that we stop believing that it is possible, and judging ourselves for not having one ourselves.
It is a hard standard to live up to, perfection is a mirage that you never quite reach, it is a good excerise to ask yourself what your perfect normal day would look like? It is a fun excerise, to imagine have the time to do the things that you are perfectly passionate about, to have the space to exercise, walk, meditate, lazy lunches with friends, dinner with family, but plans never survive contact with the enemy and in this case you are your own worst enemy, as you underestimate how what a moody you are, how your energy levels fluctuate during a single day, how your mindset changes and swings from joy to sorrow in the space of a moment. It is good to plan to make sure you are vaguely in alignment with your goals, the things that you want to be part of your daily habits, and if something is not a habit it will probably not get done on a regular basis. This is part of taking a step back, it is not a defeat it is a stocktaking, a check that you are actually doing what you wish to do, instead of being over run by the simple demands of the day.
Sometimes we can only notice the habit that we have gained by accident when we were not looking, it is surprising how easily these can creep in, a single afternoon donut can become a tradition at an amazing rate. My rule is never to do a bad habit two days in a row, I might just have an addictive personality but that is enough for a habit to form, or at least a pleasurable one (which are normally the bad ones!) what is important is to know yourself, that is where the ability to step back and view what you are doing is so valuable, it gives you self-knowledge and a little of that goes a long way. It gives you the chance to make a choice, there are no wrong or right answers, that is why I go out of my way to give as little fixed advice as possible, but there are bad choices, and they are normally the one's that we are not aware that we are making.
When we make a choice at least there is a chance that we get to use our freewill and whether it is determined does not change the fact is it feels like freewill and that having a choice is empowering, as if life is anything it is taking action and being the cause of an effect, especially if that effect is of advantage to yourself. Being able to build something better, to put yourself in an advantageous position due to a series of actions, is a wonderful thing, it gives you the satisfaction of being the author of your own journey. There is nothing inherently special about being a doctor except for the fact that they have undergone the seven years of hard work to become a doctor, they choose day after day to do the work, they took the action to get where they are, that is a badge of self-worth that is undeniable, though many doctor fail to repeat this action in every other parts of their life, hence, the poor health outcomes, addiction, divorce outcomes that they lead the field in.
However if you do not like the actual work, what you have brought yourself is a job that you hate, it could make you the stupidest person in the room, it is all a matter of personal wants and knowing yourself. There are not right decisions, there are only good choices for you, and sometimes you are wrong, even with the best of intentions, you might love coffee that does not mean you should run a coffeeshop, and yet the dream might make you happy, the reality would be long hours and a lot of cleaning. That is the power of stepping back and seeing what actions you have taken and whether they are really making you happier, what are the effect of your actions, sometimes the bad one actually have a positive outcome. It can be surprising how many actions that we resist actually have good outcome, hard exercise is well hard work but you can feel great for days from just twenty minutes hard work, saying no to donuts can make you feel healthy and happy, refusing that promotion might save you from a stress related heart attack.
What taking a step backwards really means is that you get to see your own live in an objective way, you might use journals, meditation, calendars reminders, to build a daily habit of checking in with what you are doing and if it is serving a purpose in your life, and is it still doing so. Life is a series of small steps and actions, and that is where most of your focus should always be, but if we fail to look up and see where you are going, it could be that we miss out on some of the most important things in the world. This is not about daydreaming or wish fulfilment, it is checking that you are not putting a huge amount of effort into something that will not serve you in the long run, or that is steering you away from what you truly want, of course if you do not know what you really want, that is an entirely different question and well worth considering. Stepping back is much more about stock checking that you are satisfying the small desires, that you are feeding yourself right, moving around, laughing, feeling joy, sleeping well, and then you can worry about the big stuff, as to get to that it takes a lot of small steps, sometimes you dance, and when appropriate you even step backwards.
