Tonight, for some reason, I felt an itch to look up a song on YouTube. Well, YouTube is like Netflix. One video led to another, and that one to three more, and on and on from there. I stumbled across a song I hadn't heard in a long time, but it struck me deeply. The song, as you may have guessed by now, is called "The Dance," originally written and performed by Garth Brooks.
I listened to two of his performances of the song, a performance by Scotty McCreary, another by Carrie Underwood, and yet another by Martina McBride. There were a few more after that, until I lost count. Every version, every artist, conveys strong emotion in the song. It's one of those songs that you can't really strip of emotion and meaning.
And it got me thinking. Thinking about my life, about the lives of some of my friends and family members. If you haven't heard the song, I definitely recommend you give it a listen (YouTube link below). The whole lesson is that, even though life sometimes goes bad, relationships end, people move on, it's all part of the dance.
I think we spend a lot of time worrying about the future. We worry about what will happen, if we will succeed, if anything bad will happen to us or those we love. And often, we use the phrase "hindsight is 20/20." We say that, knowing what we know now, we might go back and do something differently, that we might try to change the outcome.
The whole point of this song is that we can't, and we shouldn't. Life is filled with pain and misfortune. You can't go through life without being hurt. But, in the end, there is life, light, joy, happiness, and love in there as well. And it doesn't exist on its own, but with the pain. Life is, very truthfully, a dance. We move this way and that, sometimes artfully, sometimes clumsily. Sometimes we move with ease, and sometimes we blunder and have to focus intentionally on every motion. But, we dance. We fall, we break parts of ourselves, and we get back up and keep dancing. If we try to change the painful parts, if we could go back and eliminate them, then we would disrupt the dance. It wouldn't be a dance. We wouldn't really learn, as we do from the pain.
And that is what struck me so deeply. I look back on my short life, compared to the number of years I potentially have left, and I see the mistakes, the clumsy maneuvers, the elegance, the joy, and the pain. And when I think about it, I really wouldn't change a thing. I've experienced loss, yearly now for the past few years. I've lost grandparents, and a cousin and her daughter well before their time. I've felt myself shut out, ridiculed, taunted, picked on, and disliked. But I've been loved. My grandparents positively doted on me, and through their illness and pain I can still remember the laughs. I might cry when I remember losing them, but I almost always end up laughing remembering some special antic that we performed together or some personal conversation. One grandmother is still with us, and I recognize an opportunity to make the very best of what time I might have left to make such memories with her. I remember my cousin, memories from before I was potty-trained. I remember the laughs, the inside jokes, and even the struggles within the family. I remember her daughter's smile, the way she demanded the attention of everyone in the room.
I remember the good times I had with my friends, when I finally lowered my internal barriers enough to really connect. I remember the thrill of turning 16, the freedom we all felt. I remember turning 18, and the realization that a bigger, adult world was waiting for us to make our mark. I remember cram sessions before exams, laughs during volleyball games, and cheering on the team. I remember that we all would link arms and sing along to "Don't Stop Believin'" at the end of every dance, from 6th grade until we graduated. I remember the flash mob we planned and executed for our graduation ceremony.
There were painful moments in their, moments of loss and emptiness. But without these moments, without the pain, I wouldn't have experienced the dance. As the song says, "Our lives are better left to chance, I could have missed the pain, But I'd have had to miss the dance." We can't control our lives, we can't stop it from hurting. All we can do is remember that with the pain comes joy, celebration, and love. It's all part of life, and to change that would be to take out an element that we can't really live without. An element that sharpens our memory, that is dynamic and gives depth to our cherished memories. And so my point is, don't worry so much about the future. Don't worry so much about what might happen, or what could happen, or even what will happen. Live in the moment, embrace it all, and don't miss the dance.
I listened to two of his performances of the song, a performance by Scotty McCreary, another by Carrie Underwood, and yet another by Martina McBride. There were a few more after that, until I lost count. Every version, every artist, conveys strong emotion in the song. It's one of those songs that you can't really strip of emotion and meaning.
And it got me thinking. Thinking about my life, about the lives of some of my friends and family members. If you haven't heard the song, I definitely recommend you give it a listen (YouTube link below). The whole lesson is that, even though life sometimes goes bad, relationships end, people move on, it's all part of the dance.
I think we spend a lot of time worrying about the future. We worry about what will happen, if we will succeed, if anything bad will happen to us or those we love. And often, we use the phrase "hindsight is 20/20." We say that, knowing what we know now, we might go back and do something differently, that we might try to change the outcome.
The whole point of this song is that we can't, and we shouldn't. Life is filled with pain and misfortune. You can't go through life without being hurt. But, in the end, there is life, light, joy, happiness, and love in there as well. And it doesn't exist on its own, but with the pain. Life is, very truthfully, a dance. We move this way and that, sometimes artfully, sometimes clumsily. Sometimes we move with ease, and sometimes we blunder and have to focus intentionally on every motion. But, we dance. We fall, we break parts of ourselves, and we get back up and keep dancing. If we try to change the painful parts, if we could go back and eliminate them, then we would disrupt the dance. It wouldn't be a dance. We wouldn't really learn, as we do from the pain.
And that is what struck me so deeply. I look back on my short life, compared to the number of years I potentially have left, and I see the mistakes, the clumsy maneuvers, the elegance, the joy, and the pain. And when I think about it, I really wouldn't change a thing. I've experienced loss, yearly now for the past few years. I've lost grandparents, and a cousin and her daughter well before their time. I've felt myself shut out, ridiculed, taunted, picked on, and disliked. But I've been loved. My grandparents positively doted on me, and through their illness and pain I can still remember the laughs. I might cry when I remember losing them, but I almost always end up laughing remembering some special antic that we performed together or some personal conversation. One grandmother is still with us, and I recognize an opportunity to make the very best of what time I might have left to make such memories with her. I remember my cousin, memories from before I was potty-trained. I remember the laughs, the inside jokes, and even the struggles within the family. I remember her daughter's smile, the way she demanded the attention of everyone in the room.
I remember the good times I had with my friends, when I finally lowered my internal barriers enough to really connect. I remember the thrill of turning 16, the freedom we all felt. I remember turning 18, and the realization that a bigger, adult world was waiting for us to make our mark. I remember cram sessions before exams, laughs during volleyball games, and cheering on the team. I remember that we all would link arms and sing along to "Don't Stop Believin'" at the end of every dance, from 6th grade until we graduated. I remember the flash mob we planned and executed for our graduation ceremony.
There were painful moments in their, moments of loss and emptiness. But without these moments, without the pain, I wouldn't have experienced the dance. As the song says, "Our lives are better left to chance, I could have missed the pain, But I'd have had to miss the dance." We can't control our lives, we can't stop it from hurting. All we can do is remember that with the pain comes joy, celebration, and love. It's all part of life, and to change that would be to take out an element that we can't really live without. An element that sharpens our memory, that is dynamic and gives depth to our cherished memories. And so my point is, don't worry so much about the future. Don't worry so much about what might happen, or what could happen, or even what will happen. Live in the moment, embrace it all, and don't miss the dance.