Every Step Counts

If I’ve learnt anything from my five years of public speaking at school, it’s that you should write a speech from your own experience. What experience? I am 20 years old. I could start at the beginning, where my brain was forming in its infancy, neurons synapsing and connections being made. But a speech should not be a sleeping tablet. To that end, I have concluded that, in my experience, my expertise lies in being a high school student. And if you lean in, come closer and read carefully, I will tell you how you can make every step count. Well, first of all, if we’re going to be talking about steps, then let’s use the staircase as a metaphor. We walk upstairs on our way to a destination, so obviously, there’s a purpose in taking the stairs.

But now let’s move our focus away from the actual staircase and back to the way people access the stairs. No offence Sigmund Freud, but I don’t need psychoanalysis – I can diagnose people’s personalities simply by watching how they take the stairs. So, let’s explore this. I call the first category the Two Steppers. They’re the ones who take two steps at a time, determined to get to the top, the ones who focus on the destination rather than the journey. In life, these will be the people who’ll celebrate their achievement but may not remember the experience along the way. They’ll get to the destination but the reward of getting there will be shallow. They won’t have collected memories or friendships or experiences to reflect upon.

The next category is made up of the Careful treaders. These are also the people who take their time, carefully taking each step with keen precision, continually watching each step-in in front of them. Away from the steps, these are the people who show self-control and are overly cautious, spending their time worrying about what is in front of them. They make lots of lists and like to micro-manage. Yes, here lie the control freaks.

A well-populated category is the Bannister Holders. They clutch the handrail as though their lives depended on its rigidity and stability. People in this group are not risk takers and are fearful of letting go. They often miss out on things because of their insecurity. These are the people who fill the second half of their lives with thoughts such as, what would have happened if I … or I wonder what was behind Door Number 2. Sadly, these are the people whose lives are filled with regret for the road not taken.

The Head Turners look around everywhere, soaking up the view and seeing the whole vista. These are the ones who see the big picture, not rushing to get to the end but enjoying the scenic route through life. By constantly looking around and taking in everything, they see their place in a much larger, grander world.

If you’re like me, a practised tripper-upperer, your thoughts will be elsewhere, telling stories and jokes because, after all, you're hilarious. These are the people whose lives are like slapstick comedy – they always say the wrong thing, trip over, get their words mixed up and bumble along. But these are usually happy people, ready to greet life and whatever it throws at them.

What about those who walk straight up the middle or on the wrong side of the stairs, causing chaos and confusion to those following proper staircase etiquette? They certainly didn’t learn to share, take turns or say sorry when THEY were in kindergarten. I suspect (so I need to do more research here) that these people have a predisposition towards bullying! These Subversives are best left to themselves and avoided at all costs.

Naturally, there are many more subcategories in my Staircase Personality Inventory, but my last major category contains the Lift-users. For them, pushing the button exists as their only form of physical activity. They want to get to their destination as quickly as possible, no talk, no view, no effort. Like the Two-Steppers, they will have missed out on all the messy and yet wonderful aspects of life.

Ladies and Gents, the clichés abound – one step at a time, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, that’s one small step for man, and so on. As much as I don’t want to put my faith in clichés, generally they DO actually reflect some truth. Life IS about taking that first step and valuing EACH step. And that’s the crux of it – OUR steps. No-one else can take our steps: they are ours and ours alone, whether we are Two Steppers, Careful treaders, tripper-upperers, Bannister Holders or even Subversives. At the end of the day, it is not our feet on the staircase that matters: rather it is the attitude in our heads and hearts. Our feet will surely do as they’re told if our heart decides to make every step count.