One step forward, two steps back...

Sometimes it feels like I'm taking one step forward, but then two steps back. As if life is one big game, a gamble and sometimes it tricks you in to thinking you're on a good path, but then you get pulled backwards and you're further behind than when you started. I wonder why life is like that? Is it to teach you a lesson, to make you go over your steps again, to retrace your path and make you aware of where you planted your feet so that you can make a more informed decision about where you are headed? Or is it because you yourself is afraid of what lies ahead and it seems safer to return to where you started, rather than take another unknown step towards something new?
I think for me, it's a bit of both. I am afraid of the unknown path that lies ahead of me and I feel safer taking a step back to the known and safe, but I also wonder if sometimes, the Universe is giving me a second chance to make sure I've made the right decision. 9 out of 10 times, I'm good. I know I've made the right one and I retrace my steps to get to where I went backwards instead of forward. Then I take a new step in to the unknown. I do feel that sometimes, when I'm thrown backwards, that my path takes me down a new road, one never before travelled and it is a better one. Regardless of how I get back to where I started from, I have to remember that I do get back. That I don't keep taking step after step backwards, but I move forward.