keep forward a step

The phrase “life must go ahead” is not a declaration of callousness, but a quiet, fundamental law of existence, as undeniable as the turning of the earth. It is the understanding that the world does not pause for our personal tragedies, our moments of paralysis, or our longing for a vanished yesterday. The sun continues its arc, the seasons perform their endless cycle, and the intricate machinery of daily life—the bus schedules, the opening of shops, the need for food on the table—grinds on, indifferent to the storms raging within us.

This forward momentum can feel cruel in the face of loss. When grief anchors us to a point in the past, the sheer normality of life continuing outside our window can seem like a betrayal. The laughter of children in a park when our own hearts are silent, the relentless cheerfulness of a morning bird when we have endured a sleepless night—these contrasts highlight the painful disconnect between our internal world, frozen in time, and the external one, rushing heedlessly forward. To be told “life must go ahead” in such a moment can feel like an instruction to abandon our feelings, to simply “get over it.”

But the true essence of the phrase is not about forgetting; it is about integration. It is the realization that we are not separate from that forward flow, but a part of it. The river does not ask the stones in its path for permission; it simply finds a way around, over, or through them, carrying the sediment of those very obstacles downstream, forever changed by the encounter. Similarly, “life must go ahead” is about carrying our experiences with us, allowing them to shape our journey rather than halt it entirely. It is the courage to take a first step, however small—to brew a cup of tea, to answer a kind message, to simply breathe in and out—acknowledging the weight we bear but refusing to be crushed by it.

It is the resilience found in the mundane: the single mother working a double shift to feed her children, the artist who picks up a brush after a rejection, the community rebuilding after a disaster. This forward movement is an act of defiance against despair, a testament to the stubborn, beautiful will to survive and, eventually, to thrive again. It is not a denial of the past, but a commitment to the future—a recognition that our story is not yet finished, and that the next chapter, however uncertain, demands to be written. Life must go ahead because within that very movement lies the possibility of healing, of new joys, and of discovering strengths we never knew we possessed.