When life kicks you in the rear—use the momentum
Everyone, at some point, gets kicked in the rear by life. Sometimes it’s a disappointment, a betrayal, a lost opportunity, bad luck or simply a stretch of time when everything seems to fall apart at once. The kick can be sudden and shocking, leaving a person flat on their face wondering what just happened.
In those moments, there are two choices: stay down in the hole where the kick landed you, or decide that the very force that knocked you down might also propel you forward.
Being knocked down hurts. That part cannot be ignored. It might take a minute, a week or even a year to gather the strength to move again. When someone gets kicked hard enough, they don’t just fall into a ditch — they may find themselves buried under it. Dirt piles up. More falls every time they try to climb. Just when it feels like progress is being made, another slide pushes them back down again.
That struggle is real, and it isn’t easy.
If getting back up were simple, everyone would do it. But the reality is that climbing out of life’s ditch often requires scratching and clawing your way upward inch by inch. It requires patience, resilience and the belief that the hole is not where the story ends.
Some people choose to stay there. They sit with the grief, the anger, the unfairness and the disappointment. They replay what went wrong and allow the weight of it all to keep them still. And while no one can judge how deeply a setback affects someone else, staying stagnant in that place eventually becomes its own kind of trap.
Nothing grows in a hole where movement stops.
The alternative is not pretending the kick didn’t hurt. The alternative is deciding that the kick will not define the outcome. Instead of letting it push them permanently downward, some people decide to use that momentum to move forward.
Forward does not always mean fast. Sometimes forward is simply crawling a few inches higher than yesterday. Sometimes it means brushing the dirt off and trying again after another slide knocks everything loose. Progress may be slow and uneven, but motion itself becomes the victory.
There is no single phrase or piece of advice that magically lifts someone out of the ditch. Strength doesn’t arrive as a perfect inspirational quote. It comes as a frame of mind — a quiet decision that even when life kicks from behind, the story is not over.
Because every kick carries energy.
And for those willing to keep climbing, scratching and pushing forward, that very kick might be the thing that eventually sends them soaring.
Wendy Kushel is the owner of Wendala’s LowCountry Sugar Scrub, LLC based in Bluffton. Drawn to the beauty and personal care industry, Wendy founded her company in 2020. Her background includes stand-up comedy, film, TV and a lot of sales and marketing. For information about Wendala’s® LowCountry Sugar Scrub visit
www.lowcountrysugarscrub.com.
