Soldier On: The act of moving forward in spite of not wanting to, because it is the right thing to do, because shit needs to get done, and because… reasons. For the record, I am the patron saint for soldiering on. If you were to ask just about anybody who knows me in person, they would tell you that being able to soldier on is my Mutant ability. I would prefer the ability to heal from anything, manipulate time, teleport, and shoot freaking laser beams from my freaking eyes (all abilities wrapped into one super bad ass package: go big or go home), but a regular human with an uncanny knack for moving forward, even when I don’t want to, is truly my super power. Some might think that to simply soldier on daily is sad or depressing, but I heartily disagree. There are many valid reasons to keep pushing forward.
First and foremost it staves off stagnation. This is a big one. Moving forward is key. You should tend to trend in a forward like momentum for a variety of reasons. Doing nothing solves nothing, you have to force yourself to move on in order to accomplish your goals and to move past your obstacles. The only person stopping you, is you. So stop it! Get up and make a plan! You can pick up the pieces, figure things out, and make things better. It won’t happen immediately. It won’t happen overnight. It may even take months, but if you work hard and push past your every day life, you can accomplish your goals. You can do it! Replay this montage over and over until this point sinks in:
Third and finally, it beats the hell out of beating yourself up. Wallowing in your problems does not make them go away, and it most certainly does not improve your mental health. Pick yourself up, wipe yourself off, and get moving towards your goals again. Depression is a real thing, and if you do not attempt to move forward you can get stuck in a rut, that in many ways can become a self fulfilling prophecy of emotional funk that will only keep you trapped in your own depression forever. Break the cycle. Do something different. Move on. You can do it! The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. It’s like April tells Adam in Hot Tub Time Machine, “you’ve got to embrace the chaos! You have to! That way life might just astonish you.” (see below, one of my favorite movies of the forevers BTW)