Have you ever had a goal that you worked towards for years? After working those long years with enthusiasm and hope, did that goal become a bit ragged at the edges? Perhaps the dream started to become less attainable, or even worse; you may think you had been barking up the wrong tree the whole time. That can make you feel as though the house you’ve been building has had the walls cave in. So, were you wasting your time?
Nope. Just because your horizon has changed, it doesn’t mean you should let the boat sink. Everything we do, everything we experience plays a big part in shaping our lives. I think of how dancers get painful blisters on their feet from wearing pointe shoes or dancing barefoot. The wounds heal, and then a callous eventually develops with tougher skin. The dancer finds out where the most vulnerable areas of the feet are and can then take the right precautions so the same wound won’t keep recurring over and over again.
Our own painful or disappointing experiences don’t have to forever cause the pain as when they first happened and stop us from reaching. We may always have the war stories to share with each other, as well as the sadness of remembering, but if we use the pain to reach out to others’ pain rather than pulling into our own, it reveals the purpose and wisdom that will bring peace in the midst of the pain. We live in a world where pain is inevitable, but giving in to it and imploding lets the pain win. Then, instead of shifting our goals, we have none.
Robert Browning said, “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp.” Why? If we know our goal can never be realized, why bother? First of all, we don’t really know for sure if that goal is truly impossible for us. However, we bother because it’s not always about the end result. It’s about the journey and what we pick up along the way. Some goals are achieved, but the true victory is the strength, knowledge, skills, and perseverance we develop because of the rocky road.
If we only set goals that require little or no sacrifice or dedication, our vision becomes shorter until all we can do is float through life like a boat with no sails and no wind. Floating may be easy for a while, but we have no way of going anywhere. So, our standards continue to drop along with our creativity and sense of purpose.
Dancers stretch every day. The stretching keeps them flexible, reduces the chance of injury, and helps them achieve more and more skill. Younger dancers (even some of the older ones!) don’t like it and have to have the self-discipline to go past what they can already do. When they are consistent, their progress is evident. When we try to stretch our reach further and further away, we learn how long our arms can be, and we won’t come back empty handed.
Once you have finally wrapped your fingers around that diamond in the sky, you realize you can try for anything you want to do. Even if you miss that diamond, you still collect some priceless jewels that you may end up loving even more, and then you’re ready for the next stretch.
Dance on.
Grace Notes 