Manic Monday: Do what you love (even if you suck at it)

Today marks the first in (what I hope to be) a series of Monday blogs – affectionately titled “Manic Mondays” – in which I write about something that’s been on my mind the past week, whether it be a thought, feeling, piece of news, new film, etc. As I’m only currently working part-time and one of those days thankfully does not include Monday, “manic” refers not necessarily to my state of mind on this day, but rather what has left me “manic” all week.

Make sense?

As a creative, I find that I’m passionate about many facets of the world, and even if I’m the only one reading this thing, I’d rather not limit myself to simply one line of consciousness. I’m hoping that the theme of “Manic Mondays” keeps this blog coherent and organized enough without limiting what I’m attempting to say.

Now that we’ve got the introduction out of the way –

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about finding joy when the world seems to be submerged in a gaping hole. Sometimes – for me, anyway – it can be really difficult to find the good. Any source of good. I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t always have a lot of faith in humanity, particularly when there’s not a day that passes where we’re not bombarded with terrible news or swept away in mass hysteria over own making (the first and last reference I’ll ever make to Ebola in this blog).

Every now and again, I’m pleasantly surprised, but those days seem to come more infrequently. And I’d like them to occur so often that they stop surprising me.

But I don’t know if that day will ever come. And so I’ve realized that it’s up to me to create my own sense of happiness – within myself and within my world – to help combat the negativity that at least appears to be widespread.

What I’ve realized about happiness is that you can’t afford to be picky about where it comes from. For example:

When I was 12, I started taking a couple of dance classes every week. I loved it pretty much from the start and continued to leap through my teenage years until I was 18. I headed off to college and my heart kind of fell away from dance. It wasn’t that my passion diminished, but my insecurity completely road-blocked me. I wasn’t picking up the steps as quickly as I should’ve been and I still struggled with single-turn pirouettes when I should’ve been on three-turn pirouettes.

It wasn’t like I ever planned on becoming a professional dancer, but it was still something that I loved, but ended up dropping because I let my ego get in the way.

Fast forward six years later and I’m dancing again. And I’m not gonna lie and say that those insecurities have vanished because they haven’t. I still struggle sometimes to keep up with everyone else and not let it bother me, but you know what?

It doesn’t matter.

Honestly, so what if I’m not the best? There will ALWAYS be someone better. There will always be a better dancer, a better writer, a better artist. It’s never been about being the absolute best and it never should be.

Because when it’s so hard to find the joy in life, what good is it going to do you to ruin the things you love with I’m not good enough?

Odds are the only person judging you is you.