“When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place
on the floor. It’s to enjoy each step along the way.”
— Wayne Dyer
What a beautiful reminder that we sometimes need to paste to our foreheads…especially me.
What a week it has been. My book, Stop the Needless Suffering, arrived on Monday, just in time for two seminars and book signings this week. The love and support from the audiences has been filled to overflowing, over the top with emotion.
The associated flurry of activity this week could be likened to living in a tornado. Whew, so many things swirling together from every direction, all at once. There are so many associated activities to learn – AWeber, Virtual Terminal, pasting book links from Amazon into a newly created web site, etc., etc.
Then on Wednesday, the world stopped for just a little while to force me to pause and take notice of the process. I was driving out of town to make a 12:30 lunch appointment that I was very excited about. Everything was going very well. Almost to my destination, I had 15 minutes to spare.
The circumstances all changed when just ahead a train blocked the highway, leaving a mile full of cars and semis stopped dead in all directions. There we all were, trapped together with no possibility of escape.
After my 15 spare minutes were used up, slowly the traffic began to move once again. All the semis started to move slowly, creeping along , one behind the other, on a two lane highway - all the way to my final destination. Trapped in a situation I could do nothing about, it gave me the opportunity to reflect on the moment…and on the entire week’s activities.
Slowly I began to replace the feeling of being panicked at being late with a different feeling. I started to sense the deliciousness of what it would be like when I finally did meet my friends for that lunch appointment. Suddenly I was grateful for this delay, which would now make the moment of our meeting even sweeter. A joyful feeling filled my heart.
It occurred to me that perhaps the delay was simply to get my attention. I had plenty of time to reflect on the week and soak up the joy and appreciation for each step in the process.
Winston Churchill said, “Everyone stumbles over the truth from time to time, but most people pick themselves up and hurry off as though nothing ever happened.”
The truth I stumbled over was to feel joy in every moment, all of them – even when a stopped train interferes with my schedule.
The lesson for the day? When we dance, let us remember to enjoy each step along the way.
