Sometimes you swim; sometimes you just tread water.

We're taught from day one, or soon after, that we always need to be moving ahead.

It's not enough to say "mama" or "dada." Now it's time to sit up and then crawl and then walk and then think and reason and become adults and -- my, how the time flies!

From our first days, we're hurried along. Grow! Learn! Get taller! Get smarter! Stand up straight! As the drill sergeants in basic training used to yell at us recruits, "Move it, move it, move it!"

But life presents diversions along the way that slow us down, make us pay attention. As we grow older, we find we're interested in things that take a lot of our time and don't fit our parents' desires for us. They, understandably, want us to be doctors or lawyers or scientists or business men and women -- jobs that guarantee an income, and benefits.

Inevitably, we get distracted. Life is full of so much fun and beauty and wonder that we can't believe our parents never told us about it. Their principles seem pretty strict in the face of all this amazing stuff.

And at some point, we either go along with out parents, or we rebel.

Some of us thrive in the career our parents laid out for us. Some of us find fortune in a career our parents never imagined. Others of us settle for something just short of what we'd hoped for. Some of us get lost.

But somewhere in our lives and careers, almost all of us get stuck at one time or other. It may be indecision about that career or who to marry. It may be a mental illness, like depression, that stops us in our tracks. It may be a bad job or a -- you name it. Even those of us on the fast track to success sometimes get waylaid.

For whatever reason, we can't move forward. We thought we knew where we wanted to go, and the way there, but now we don't seem to have the energy to move in that direction. (I would try to be more specific about what it feels like, but it's different for every person in every situation.)

What to do when you hit an immoveable object? Ask advice? Seek medical help? Get drunk?

We do all of those and more to try to get going again. But you know what? Maybe we don't need to do anything. Maybe there are times when we need to STOP moving and just sit still. Be quiet. Think about things. Enjoy nature or good food. Re-evaluate. Make a new plan -- but in no hurry. Assuming we still have a paycheck, or at least savings, and aren't deathly ill, we have time.

Take a deep breath. You're in waters too deep or too turbulent for you. Don't fight them. Relax. Tread water. (For you non-swimmers, including me, that's a skill they teach swimmers to stay afloat without going anywhere; I'm assuming you can do it as long as your arms and legs let you.) The key words: stay afloat.

You may not be moving forward right now -- for whatever reason -- but that doesn't mean you have to sink to the bottom. Lots of suicides happen because someone lost momentum but didn't know that it's sometimes okay to stop struggling and do absolutely nothing beyond the minimum for a while. Lie back and float. Look up at the sky.

Tread water. Just don't sink. Time is on your side. A wave could catch you at any second.

Whoa! Look at you go!