I recently had an epiphany. There is more than one way to do almost anything. I’m not sure why it took nearly 50 years for this to occur to me.
My husband and I recently started a dancing class. The first night of class we started working on the East Coast Swing. I paid very close attention to get every detail exactly right. When I saw one couple turning their hand a different direction I asked the teacher to clarify which direction was correct, so I could get it just right. I got frustrated when I was afraid we weren’t doing it perfectly. The next day I spent several hours on the computer watching YouTube videos of people doing the East Coast Swing. I was amazed to find that every single couple was doing it differently. Much differently. That is when it hit me. There is more than one way to do the East Coast Swing and IT DOESN’T MATTER! This was big. My universe shifted.
We didn’t sign up to take this dance class because we hope to compete in ballroom dancing contests. We didn’t sign up to be on Dancing with the Stars. We signed up to do something fun together. Our biggest aspiration concerning dancing is that the next time we go to a wedding reception we can actually dance together. That’s it. So what does it matter which direction our hands twist as long as we do it together? There is no dance police.
I have essentially been stifling my own creativity for years. It should have occurred to me earlier. I remember taking an art class in college and hearing the teacher say something like “I set out to draw a (thing one), but then it started to look more like a (thing two) and it pleased me, so I went with it”. Wow! Is that allowed?
Believe it or not, I don’t think this is a matter of having OCD. It’s more an issue of trusting that my way is just as valid as the next guy’s. There is more than one way to do things and who is to say that my way isn’t just as acceptable as any other way. I need to be brave enough to forge my own path without looking to someone else to validate my methods.
So I’m going to do it. I’m going to dance like nobody’s watching.
Here, kitty kitty kitty.
Way to be! I need to take this advice to heart and not worry so much about the way other people do things. Why is my way wrong?
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, guys are overly confident in their abilities. I remember the J-Ster telling me when he was on a small plane with a number of other pilot aspirants, he thought "If something happens to the pilot, I got it" and then he thought that is probably what all the other guys were thinking.
ReplyDeleteSee, I'm actually the opposite. My deal is that I'm not willing to humiliate myself by trying to do something the exact same as someone else (because I know I would get it wrong!). I'm not afraid of changing things up because if someone thinks I'm doing it wrong, I just say, "this is my way of doing it" and therefore it makes me sound like I actually know what I'm doing even if I don't! I guess it's my way of covering my would-be mistakes!
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