You won’t reach the end of your life wishing you had danced less.
That’s what my friend Debby decided. She’s been taking ballroom dance lessons for more than a year, and loves it.
Like the contestants on Dancing With The Stars (my guilty pleasure, and hers too), Debby discovered a passion she didn’t know she had. She’s having fun. She’s gained confidence as she’s gained skills. And she’s learned how to dance everything from the foxtrot to the rhumba to the waltz.
There’s a whole dance culture I never knew existed, with special shoes and flouncy outfits, group dances and practice parties and competitions. And Debby has decided to enter a competition this fall.
There are costs, of course. Oh, there are costs. There’s all the dancing instruction between now and then, covering the specific dances she’ll be doing. She’ll need at least two fancy outfits, which apparently she can rent, the way you can rent tuxedos for weddings. The competition package also requires two nights in a hotel and a number of meals. It adds up to enough money that she won’t tell me how much.
But we agreed; she has to do it – for the fun, for the challenge, for the experience. And because she does not want to come to the end of her life regretting that she didn’t dance when she could. Life is too short.