Life rarely follows the steady, even beat you think you wish it would. Life changes relentlessly, and with each little change, the future shifts like a kaleidoscope turning. There's no going back to that past pattern, no way to reset life into a previous schema you have already passed by. Time flows onward, and the future flickers bright and dim in turns as the days are regulated by the orbit of our world around a star. We think we can alter the world, but we cannot, not really. It is, and will be, as it was.
We can change ourselves, perhaps, with time and much effort. Change is, after all, inevitable. Look at a photo of yourself a decade ago and ask 'is that me?' or perhaps better yet 'what have I become?' The first answer, like it or not, is always no. The second may only be answerable in minutia, never the whole as by the time we see all, we're changing yet again. The beat of the ticking clock drives us onward, like it or not.
Choose the path less traveled, and go miles before you sleep. Know that when you waken, there will be yet more miles to go. This is the way through the woods, to reach something on the other side that isn't fully formed yet. Will not be so, until you are nearly there. When you enter the gates of the destination, it will still be solidifying in your mind. You will see other gates then, on the far side, calling you.
Ever onward, ever upward, even when the road beneath your feet feels as though it dips and turns away from your goals. Momentum, the steps as regular as the metronome, when you stumble regain your pace. When you fall, crawl until you can stand and walk again. When you break out into sunshine on the ridge, turn and look back, just for a moment, to see how far you've come. Then turn back to the path ahead with squared shoulders and renewed determination.
My Odd Prompt this week came again from a photo prompt from Kat Ross again. I opted to go in a different direction than fiction. I prompted Misha Burnett with 'the goblins wore pyjamas' and he responded with a nifty poem. Feel free to join in the fun by emailing a prompt to oddprompts@gmail.com. You'll get a randomly assigned prompt in return.