The Dance

I like Garth Brooks; in fact, I like country music in general. One of my favorite songs by Garth Brooks is “The Dance.“ If you know of it, you may remember these lyrics:

“I could have missed the pain, but I'd have had to miss the dance”

This makes me wonder: How often do we miss out on good things just because we are afraid to face the short-term pain? 

Now let me first clarify that the pain I am talking about is not necessarily physical pain. 

Rather, I am talking about the times that we want to avoid the “pain” or discomfort of speaking the truth, so instead of speaking up, we stay quiet. 

I am talking about the times when we want to avoid our responsibility to say, “It is not right. I am not going to allow this to happen,” because we don’t want people to judge us or our families to be upset with us. I am talking about the times when we sidetrack our responsibility to do or say something that could potentially bring about positivity. 

This week, by facing the uncomfortable head on, we can set ourselves on the path to reveal our potential—to become who we can be—which, after all, is our purpose in life. 

Sure, we can try to avoid pain (it’s not terribly hard to do), but when we do, it may also mean that we miss the dance.