Dancing Through the Grey

I just love this gif.

Every time I come across it it makes me smile.

It’s Brad Pitt and his goofy character Chad Feldheimer doing the happy dance in the movie Burn After Reading.  I love this part with him dancing and pumping the air and laughing and being silly.

This is how I’d like to be.

At least most of the time.

I know no one is happy all of the time. Life isn’t always dancing in the street, a bowl of cherries, or the pot at the end of the rainbow. Sometimes life sucks.

But when it doesn’t, it’s a chance to make wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, the (almost) best time of your life.

Now I don’t necessarily do the happy dance when I’m mopping the floor or filling the dishwasher. But when times get tough/boring/ stressful, a little bit of hopping around to “Swing Swing Swing” by Benny Goodman or “Flirtin’ With Disaster” by Molly Hatchet or the ending of the “1812 Overture” by Tchaikovsky can certainly do a number on my emotional state.

I know I sound like the old broken record, but there’s something about waking up every morning that makes me want to dance (after coffee, of course). Well, not all the time, but you know what I mean. Even with the aches and pains and trials of life, the miscues, missteps, and mis-ery, I try and find a reason to smile. To dance. Or even tap my foot, if I so desire.

How do we find Brad Pitt’s level of happiness?

That’s up to the individual.

Good books, great movies, powerful music, all are triggers. So are babies and kids, puppies, kittens, sunsets, oceans, crafts, flowers, phone calls and photo albums. The past, the present, and the future eventually all blend together anyway, so why not find something that makes you smile and feel good and run with it?

I know many hate this simpleton point of view. Life is not just black and white. Happy or sad. Hot or cold. It’s always a matter of gray.

Grey is good.

According to an article in the online magazine Psychreg, “When we attempt to view life in cut and dry terms we end up boxing ourselves into a rigid way of thinking and feeling. Our abilities to resolve our differences become more difficult and we can negatively impact our effectiveness. The more we learn about the grey areas of life, the more we see how it shapes our earthly experience.”

So we need the grey area. But in the end, grey gives up to either black or white. You either do or you don’t. You stay or you go. You live or you die. 

You either dance to the music or you don’t. 

Try dancing. It’s more fun, more liberating, and more addicting than any dark corner of life.

And it sure beats filling the dishwasher.