He attempted to sidestep a conflict with his chief.

We sidestep getting excited about something, because we're not sure it's actually going to happen.

There must be some democratic forms of life and forms of organization that can sidestep all imperial and colonial forms of subjugation.

Implicit in this phrase of overcoming adversity is the idea that success, or happiness, is about emerging on the other side of a challenging experience unscathed or unmarked by the experience, as if my successes in life have come about from an ability to sidestep or circumnavigate the presumed pitfalls of a life with prosthetics, or what other people perceive as my disability.

And it's an idea that I think is very prevalent at these TED Talks, the idea that we can invent our way out of a profound economic and energy crisis, that a move to a knowledge economy can somehow neatly sidestep those energy constraints, the idea that we'll discover some fabulous new source of energy that will mean we can sweep all concerns about energy security to one side, the idea that we can step off neatly onto a completely renewable world.