The school where I work, has a behavior system in place, where the children earn bucks for all types of good behavior. When they earn enough, they can redeem them for different prizes. One of those prizes is a quarterly dance party. They really have to save their bucks to earn it.
This week, we had the dance parties. On Monday, the little ones, in grades kindergarten through second grade, got to attend. There weren’t a lot of kids who chose the dance, but the ones who did, had a blast.
When I peeked in and watched them, I don’t know when I have seen more joyful souls. They were playing everything from the oldie “Celebration,” to the “Cha Cha Slide,” and those children loved every minute of it. There was even a Conga Line. They danced like no one was watching and didn’t seem to care even if somebody was watching.
There were two kindergartners, in particular, who caught my eye. They stood in the very front, right beside each other, but not paying any attention to what the other was doing as they did their own creative moves. Those little guys never stopped moving or doing their own thing.
They danced simply for the joy of dancing.
That dance party stayed on my mind long after the music stopped playing. There’s such a tiny window in our lives where we can dance like no one is watching, or sing like we are rock stars, or paint like we are all Picasso’s. We believe that we are good at everything because the world hasn’t convinced us that we aren’t and we aren’t afraid to be different.
When two kindergarteners are told to draw a picture of a house and one is completely different than the other, they don’t tear each other down. In fact, they will often compliment one another and move on. They do their own thing and aren’t so interested in swaying others to do the same.
But, it doesn’t take long before we become self-conscious about our dance moves, or our singing voices, or are artistic abilities, or quite frankly, just about everything. Our creative sides so often become completely stifled by the opinions of others, so much so, that at some point, we stop trying.
I’m not sure if there’s anything more harmful to our happiness than comparison. Those kindergartners reminded me the beauty of doing your own thing in the way that you feel called to do it. They reminded me that we were never called to please other people in the first place. We were called to please our God who created us.
So, we should feel free to dance, and draw, and sing. It really doesn’t matter who’s watching. Sometimes I need reminding. Perhaps you do too.
Have an awesome day!
Wendy 🙂
