Dancing with Disappointments

I am not much of a dancer.  I have never taken any classes and watching me boogie on the dance floor is embarrassing for both of us.  But it is fun to dance to the rhythm of pop music every once in a while.

In my adult life I was involuntarily introduced to another kind of dancing.  My daughters and I performed in several community theater productions and in every production there were some required dance numbers with dance choreography.  The dance steps in these numbers were often very demanding. The choreographers were professional and pushed for perfection.  Needless to say, my two left feet often stuck out like a sore thumb.  I was slow to learn and awkward as I performed the numbers.   No one could have guessed, by the way I was performing, that I had, in fact, choreographed for drill teams, colorguards, and marching bands, every summer for 25 years.

Miraculously, and to my astonishment and surprise, by the time the musicals hit the stage, I had learned and successfully polished the dance numbers and dance routines enough that I didn’t ruin the performance for everyone else.  I was particularly pleased and grateful for the patience of the choreographers.  They knew that, in the early days of rehearsals and practice, most of us, if not all of us, would make lots of mistakes, until we got it right.  

There is a lesson to be learned from my dance instructors about dealing with life’s disappointments. Mistakes, accidents and mishaps happen.  Our level of happiness in life will depend on how we deal with them.

In fact, I don’t really like phrases like deal with, or cope with, or manage, or react, as they relate to mistakes, accidents and mishaps. I pondered for some time on a word that I could use that would positively express the idea that we can positively get through things we face in life, until we get them right.  At some point in my pondering, this whole ideal of dancing came to my mind.

Dancing through disappointments certainly won’t be easy at first and like learning the dance numbers, mistakes will happen. But when I think of dancing I think of positive energy, of fun and laughter and cool dance moves.

We have all heard the primary song. “If you chance to meet a frown, do not let it stay, quickly turn it upside down and smile that frown away.”  Even after all these years, hearing or singing that song makes me smile.

Let’s change it a little bit.

If you chance to meet a disappointment, do not let it stay, quickly turn it upside down and dance that disappointment away.

If you chance to meet a mistake, do not let it stay, quickly turn it upside down and dance that mistake away.

If you chance to meet an accident, do not let it stay, quickly turn it upside down and dance that accident away.

You get the idea.  You will face disappointments daily.  Mistakes, accidents, and mishaps will happen to you and you will also cause your own fair share at work, at home, in your marriage, on even on the highway. How you learn to dance with it, go with it, move and shake with it, will make all the difference in your level of happiness.

Here’s why: people tend to be easily offended, take things personal, get impatient and upset easily.  They react and internalize mistakes, accidents, and mishaps that come their way.  If they don’t “quickly turn it upside down”, resent will build, and overtime it will destroy marriages, other family relationships, and even affect mental and physical health.

I love this quote that changes Newton’s law of motion. “For every action there is an equal and opposite over reaction.”

Do you overreact?  Do you freak out over little things, take everything personal, or get agitated easily? For years you have probably blamed everyone and everything else for the poison you feel inside. But you are solely responsible for that poison. Unhappiness is not someone else’s fault.  Not a day will go by that something will go wrong or someone will wrong you.  For your own health and happiness, isn’t it about time you learned how to dance?