Guest Opinion | It Matters | Keep Moving Forward

One of my favorite movies is a lesser-known Disney film called Meet the Robinsons. I say lesser-known because, compared to the princess classics, Pixar giants, and blockbuster action films, Meet the Robinsons often seems to be forgotten—or at least talked about and showcased significantly less than its siblings. It’s a one-off story that came out in 2007, one about family and the lessons we learn and connections we make, about how much impact our actions actually have in the world and on each other, and of course, time travel. Between the truly unique characters, the humor, and the dazzling animation (I say this with no hyperbole—Robinsons is one of the sharpest, most highly stylized films I’ve ever seen), there’s a refrain throughout the film that has stuck with me for years: Keep Moving Forward.     

If you’re a Disney person, you know this is not just a heartfelt catchphrase from the film. It is, in fact, a quote from Walt Disney himself that becomes something of a work and life motto within the story. The full quote says: 

“Around here, however, we don’t look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things… and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” 

–Walt Disney  

I think there’s always been a fine balance between looking backwards and moving forward, and what I love about this quote is that it doesn’t tell us to do either, really. It simply acknowledges that in life, both actions happen, but what matters is not where you look, but how. 

2020 is coming to a close. We have a little over a month of this year left, and while in true 2020 fashion we’ve had no shortage of headlines and stories that range from bizarre to horrifying, I’ve been thinking a lot about where I want to rest my focus. There is virtue in moving forward. As I said, this motto has stuck with me over the years. It’s guided me through seasons of depression and anxiety—pushed me forward when I couldn’t imagine any goodness on the horizon (a state of mind I call “negative certainty” in therapy). But I look backwards, too. A lot. Every moment we’re alive we’re collecting memories and lessons, and life doesn’t work if you don’t examine these moments once they’ve passed and bring parts of them with you as you move forward. 

Remember: it’s a fine balance. 

We look back, but not for long. We keep moving forward, but we’re not running away. I think this year is going to need us to do both: to look backwards and to keep moving forward—to hold both in our hands as time continues slipping on. 

When I was in high school, I took an AP US History course and, if you know anything about AP classes, they’re all about teaching for the test. Needless to say, that whole year I struggled with all the facts and figures I had to remember because they weren’t sinking in, and I got consistently low scores on practice tests because of it. Things turned around, though, when I bought a “crash-course” study guide. It had everything I needed and everything I’d been taught presented in a way that I couldn’t easily forget. In the end, I passed the big test with a good score, and I still remember many of those lessons today.

Ready for the connection? 

2020 is and has been a crash course full of everything we’ve needed (and never needed), presented in a way we won’t easily forget. Things that have historically occurred over a series of years (or decades) have happened in this single year—and we’re still in it. From a full-blown civil rights movement to the election to the continued fight against the pandemic, we have been handed lesson after lesson, experience after experience, that begs us to look back as we move forward. 

I don’t say this lightly. 

If you’re reading this right now, you’re still alive in a year that has been marked with profound death. To be here right now is nothing short of a miracle, and honestly I don’t know why I’m still here any more than you do. But what I do know is that while we’re here, we can take this stockpile of lessons and the motto of keep moving forward to heart as we inch closer to a new year. 

It goes without saying that the mess of 2020 will not end on December 31st at 11:59 pm. It will walk with us into the coming year, but so will everything we’ve learned—if we’re smart enough to apply it and brave enough to remember it. We cannot hide our heads in the sand or simply look forward to a future “when this is all over” without doing the collective work to get ourselves there. We cannot keep fighting each other and resisting the necessary changes that face us if we are to really move forward. We must do better for those we’ve lost along the way—those we could have saved. 

Where we are now is where we are. Like Walt Disney reminds us, we won’t stay here. We can look backwards, but not for long. We keep moving forward. Keep opening doors and going down new pathways.

I guess what I’m trying to say is this: don’t leave this year having learned nothing, and don’t mistake the crux of this column as being nothing more than an optimistic rush to the finish line. At the same time, don’t enter next year perpetually looking back. Keep moving forward, armed with the knowledge from our crash course— there’s a lot of it to hold, I know. But these lessons double as gifts. Maybe sooner rather than later we’ll come to a place where we can sit and rest for a minute, look back at the great expanse of what we’ve been through and how it’s changed us, and take that knowledge and perspective along as we move forward, enlightened to how we can make things better for ourselves and those to come.

(PS: If you’re intrigued, you can watch Meet the Robinsons on Disney+. If nothing else, it provides a heartfelt story that evokes the most cleansing cry.)