Keep Moving Forward Principle

The Keep Moving Forward principle is old wine in a labelled bottle. The label is new; the wine has kept many households steady.

The principle works because it moves the decision from the moment of weakness to the moment of clarity. You choose the rule when you are calm, so that the rule can carry you when you are not.

What this concept offers is a pause — one extra beat between what happens and what you do about it. Civilisation, someone said, is measured in that beat.

Stand at a tea stall during a big cricket match and you will see a hundred strangers become one family in an evening. The same crowd, given a different match, can split over a surname.

Society is a long conversation; the only question is whether you are listening or merely waiting to speak. The idea has done its job if, the next time it happens to you, you smile before you react.