Some years ago, I was an avid Salsa and Rumba dancer. I’d go out a few times a week, every week and dance for hours. If you’ve enjoyed partner dancing to live music then you know that it’s one of the best feelings on earth. That joy of feeling into the steps, being in the moment with your partner, and wrapped in powerfully good music.
The satisfaction I had when my partner and I were in sync, but also the frustration we both felt when we bumped into eachother, or were off-time. But beyond both extremes, being able to re-engage in the dance, and lighten-up inside! What a relief.
It could be a metaphor for our quality of attention when working on a given project. When I have an idea and decide start it, but fail to go fully into the implemention or the action of it, or when I start and make great headway, but then get interrupted…it’s unsatisfying. It’s like intending to do a particular dance step, starting it and getting interrupted, or realizing that I’m off the beat. It’s almost painful. I’d argue that it’s even more painful in a work project than in a dance, or some other physical activity, because it’s more difficult to access the joy.
The joy is in the body, not the head. When we work, its all to easy to get into the head. The point is that whether we mess up and fall off the beat or nail the step, there is always the opportunity to re-start, and isn’t that really the best part?
I sat slumped over the steering wheel. “What am I afraid of?” I asked myself. The lump in my throat made it hard to swallow. Not being enough, I sighed. My year had already been filled with so much loss. Now, having to face my dear friend’s decline due to advanced Parkinson’s. It was more than I could bare.