Blog Post #30: Live Like You're Clubbing

 

This week, I went clubbing. But first, I read a book called The Courage to be Disliked, by Fumitake Koga and Ichiro Kishimi. My favorite chapter was called Live Like You’re Dancing. The idea, as I understood it, is that we need to focus more on living in the here and now, and worry less about the past and future. In terms of goal-setting, living like you’re dancing allows you to enjoy the process for itself and take the emphasis off the result. This mindset allows us to be happy in the here and now, not just after we’ve achieved our goals.

I found it funny that I read The Courage to be Disliked this week, because it was also the week I experienced the frantic, youthful, pulsing energy of clubbing for the very first time. Now for all intents and purposes, this was a dance club, with a lot of college students who happened to be drinking and/or were already drunk. Before stepping into the club, I was nervous and had fairly low expectations. I’m not a drinker or goer-outer and I prefer to spend my weekend nights in my dorm, reading a book or watching a movie. But my friends were going and asked me to tag along, so in a move quite uncharacteristic of Laura, I decided to go along.

Upon stepping inside, I was overwhelmed- too many bodies pressed together in the glowing lights that moved to the rhythm of the music. Some girls covered their drinks with their hands, which reminded me of all the times my mom has reminded me never to take drinks from strangers. But then something strange started happening. I started dancing. Not well, some wouldn’t even call it dancing. But I was moving my body in rhythm to the music, the same way I do when I’m alone in my dorm dancing to my own music. Why? Because when you’re in a dark club surrounded by drunk students, it doesn’t matter. People are too absorbed in having a good time to judge your dancing. And for two hours, I continued to dance. I didn’t have a sip of alcohol, but I didn’t need it. I was absorbed in the living, breathing, rhythm of the dance floor.

It was on that dance floor that the chapter Live Like You’re Dancing really clicked. When we dance, we aren’t focused on the outcome, we simply move our bodies how we want and enjoy ourselves in the process.

As a piano student, I can think about piano the same way. Sure, I could make my end goal “become a university piano professor”, and tell myself I’ll never be happy until I reach my goal. But it’s the process, not the goal, where life itself lies. Why would I scale Mt. Everest if I don’t even like hiking? The good news is that I do like piano, in fact, I don’t think I could live without it. As long as that’s the case, I’ll continue to make music and see where I end up. I’ll dance the piano dance- what dance are you going to dance?