You have most likely heard it expressed as the battle between the irresistible force versus the immoveable object. More accurately, it is Newton’s Law, which, in part, states that a body at rest will stay at rest and a body in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by another force.
The second part of Newton’s Law expresses that an unbalanced force acting on an object will cause it to accelerate. We have experienced it in that need to pass that big truck on the highway by “stepping on the gas” or that need to increase the pace with which we are running when we become aware that something big and scary is chasing us. Acceleration can happen through conscious thought or natural reaction, it can wind up being positive or negative, and is part of a large host of things happening on our planet and in our societies.