Two Steps Forward, One Step Back
For all my friends, yes, I know it's been a while since I last blogged. Perhaps part of this update will explain why.
Over in Columbus, there is one of the two Center of Science and Industry (COSI) museums in the state of Ohio. It was the original, although they recently attained a new building, much larger than their initial one if memory serves me correctly. Within COSI are a handful of hands-on experiments and "brains-on" thinking puzzles for its visitors to go through. One of the sections was called "Adventure", and pretty much it was a multi-part activity where you and your friends go through this wide set of puzzles--some mental, some physical--to gain four clues to solve some great cheesy mystery that gives kids inspiration to be creative. One of the four clues was in this section where you had to use triggers in the rooms to open three sets of doors to proceed to the end of the maze. The first room opens two sets of doors into the second and third rooms, but if you progress all the way to the third room, the switch there merely closes off the room behind you. A voice then taunts you from the heavens, saying, "Sometimes to take a step forward, you must take a step back." The obvious answer, then, is to reopen the door behind you, hit the switch in the second room, and exit the puzzle to receive your clue.
Isn't life always about that? No matter how much we try to move forward (and most of us do end up moving forward), there are so many setbacks and delays here and there that would drive any sane man to the brink of insanity. Just when you think you have everything everything taken care of, ready to go on, someone takes a pot shot at you, and you're cleaning up yet another mess.
Isn't life just grand when, just as you think you're completely comfortable with that "being single thing", you find some other couple who has this wonderful relationship, and it just makes you feel so incomplete to not have that? Isn't life just so grand when, just when you were thinking work was going so well, work suddenly either slacks off to nothing, leaving you completely bored out of your mind, or it pushes you so hard that you just want to do anything to come home? Isn't life grand when, after you've come so far on a project, your inspiration suddenly blocks off all progress? Isn't life just so grand when, after your mum has just gotten back from the hospital after having surgery, you hear the final report from the doctor, which says that the fight isn't over yet, that there are many, MANY months ahead before you're done?
One thing that is very true of me is that I have the hereditary disease of Johnson Stubbornness Syndrome. These problems are all problems that I have so very little control over, at least in solving them with the best replacement. All of these issues are, until the right time comes around, things I have to "deal with", and JSS doesn't like "dealing with" stuff. I want to go out and conquer the problem head on; I want to make everything better right away. I don't like sitting around and waiting forever and a day for the right solution to present itself! It's frustrating, it's maddening, it gives headaches, and it makes me want to just climb back into bed and curl up and sleep forever.
But that's not the answer; running away from problems, as I have found out from personal experience, is a sure fire way to keep your problems from going away if not make them all the more haunting and demanding. The answer is that, just like the lesson taught in a game for children, is that we have to accept that steps backwards are not necessarily steps backwards but rather required steps to make your life better than you have ever seen it. Life happens, and we're required to accept it, whether for good or ill. And that's what living life is all about: dealing with the bad so that we can continue on with the good.
Over in Columbus, there is one of the two Center of Science and Industry (COSI) museums in the state of Ohio. It was the original, although they recently attained a new building, much larger than their initial one if memory serves me correctly. Within COSI are a handful of hands-on experiments and "brains-on" thinking puzzles for its visitors to go through. One of the sections was called "Adventure", and pretty much it was a multi-part activity where you and your friends go through this wide set of puzzles--some mental, some physical--to gain four clues to solve some great cheesy mystery that gives kids inspiration to be creative. One of the four clues was in this section where you had to use triggers in the rooms to open three sets of doors to proceed to the end of the maze. The first room opens two sets of doors into the second and third rooms, but if you progress all the way to the third room, the switch there merely closes off the room behind you. A voice then taunts you from the heavens, saying, "Sometimes to take a step forward, you must take a step back." The obvious answer, then, is to reopen the door behind you, hit the switch in the second room, and exit the puzzle to receive your clue.
Isn't life always about that? No matter how much we try to move forward (and most of us do end up moving forward), there are so many setbacks and delays here and there that would drive any sane man to the brink of insanity. Just when you think you have everything everything taken care of, ready to go on, someone takes a pot shot at you, and you're cleaning up yet another mess.
Isn't life just grand when, just as you think you're completely comfortable with that "being single thing", you find some other couple who has this wonderful relationship, and it just makes you feel so incomplete to not have that? Isn't life just so grand when, just when you were thinking work was going so well, work suddenly either slacks off to nothing, leaving you completely bored out of your mind, or it pushes you so hard that you just want to do anything to come home? Isn't life grand when, after you've come so far on a project, your inspiration suddenly blocks off all progress? Isn't life just so grand when, after your mum has just gotten back from the hospital after having surgery, you hear the final report from the doctor, which says that the fight isn't over yet, that there are many, MANY months ahead before you're done?
One thing that is very true of me is that I have the hereditary disease of Johnson Stubbornness Syndrome. These problems are all problems that I have so very little control over, at least in solving them with the best replacement. All of these issues are, until the right time comes around, things I have to "deal with", and JSS doesn't like "dealing with" stuff. I want to go out and conquer the problem head on; I want to make everything better right away. I don't like sitting around and waiting forever and a day for the right solution to present itself! It's frustrating, it's maddening, it gives headaches, and it makes me want to just climb back into bed and curl up and sleep forever.
But that's not the answer; running away from problems, as I have found out from personal experience, is a sure fire way to keep your problems from going away if not make them all the more haunting and demanding. The answer is that, just like the lesson taught in a game for children, is that we have to accept that steps backwards are not necessarily steps backwards but rather required steps to make your life better than you have ever seen it. Life happens, and we're required to accept it, whether for good or ill. And that's what living life is all about: dealing with the bad so that we can continue on with the good.