Friday, January 1, 2010

Let's Dance.


"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass; it's about learning to dance in the rain."

I'm typically not the kind of person who gives corny one-liners like this a second glance. Most of the time, the complete corniness of the quote distracts me from seeing any deeper meaning in it. However, by no work of my own, they all seem to get filed away somewhere in the file cabinet that is my brain, and seem to climb on out when an applicable situation beckons.

This is exactly what happened the last time it rained. I was looking out the window during class as the rain fell, and I became detached from all that was going on around me, falling into the bottomless chasm that is my thoughts. I began to think about how most people see rainy days as a seeming punishment from God. They, and many times I, see rain as something that solely ruins plans and frizzes hair. When asked how the weather is on a rainy day, most people would respond, 'bad' or 'gross.' This is understandable, as most people would rather not go outside and become soaking wet in their clothes.

But why? Why do we only go outside and enjoy the sunshine, and not the rain? I am quite sure that there are people out there that would have an absolute blast dancing in the rain, if only they were able to shed the societal manacles of today and not care what others think. Then there are those who seem to have lost that childlike joy, although I am a firm believer that everyone has a little kid inside; some have just been hidden deeper inside than others. In order to have fun in a rainstorm, these people would have to go through the difficulty of finding their inner child, and bringing him out again.

While most people would be unwilling to make the best of a rainy day and truly enjoy it, things would be so much better if they would. That's really what it comes down to: making the best of it. It's all about one's attitude. If we all looked at storms, whether they be literal rainy days or metaphorical storms in life, as a chance to dance in the rain, we'd be so much better off. If we wait for every storm to simply pass us by, we miss out on so much.  There are so many lessons to be learned and fun times to be had in the midst of these storms that will be missed if one doesn't have the right attitude. Life is full of learning experiences, one of those being the chance to learn to dance in the literal and metaphorical rain.

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