Milestone & Stepping Stone

The January 2002 edition of The Toastmaster magazine had an article titled “Turning Milestones Into Stepping Stones.”  I knew this had to be the beginning of a great distinction chapter.  They defined milestones as “an important event or turning point in one’s life or career” and a stepping stone as “an advantageous position for advancement toward some goal; something that assists an ambition.”

Again, the power of a distinction lies in its experimental usage.  Some people may talk about a divorce being a huge milestone in their life.  They may even tend to talk negatively about it, illustrating the huge impact it has on their daily living and their long-term dreams.  How about we change that to a stepping stone?  A stepping stone implies that there is progress.  It gives an image of getting higher or excelling.  Why can’t a divorce do that?  It can.  And the magic is that it can through a simple change of vocabulary.

That insight can turn all sorts of milestones in our lives into stepping stones.  A stepping stone doesn’t just have its power when we “step” on the next stone.  We can completely change our past from our imagination.  We can create “steps” where there were no steps and be living a completely different present.

When planning our dreams, we may have stepping stones laid out on our course.  What happens when we “step” but don’t feel that we have gotten any higher or closer to our goal?  We feel bad and frustrated.  Sometimes we persist and eventually we make the progress.  Other times, we become more discouraged as our stepping stones even seem to be going downhill.  This is when we need to change our vocabulary again.  They’re not stepping stones.  They’re milestones.  Just because we had wanted them to be stepping stones doesn’t mean they still have to be.

By re-wording our bad stepping stone experiences into milestones, we feel better.  Instead of self-defeat, we feel that we just went through a necessary transition.  In fact we did.  There are certain stages and phases in life that we must experience.  Just because they don’t levitate towards our dreams doesn’t mean that they’re not valuable.  If they are milestones, they still have merit because they have taught us lessons we will never forget.

Our lives are full of milestones and stepping stones.  Some of them we create and some of them are given to us.  Whether they were given or created, we always have the power to transform them.  We can relive our childhood, if with nothing else, with a completely different attitude by intentionally coloring our memories.  And, that can change our entire life.  It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.

Let's love the world together...

Love,
Danish Ahmed, blind visionary