But a few days ago he really pushed some buttons and his little blog has been plaguing me since. He wrote a piece called “Kicking and Screaming (vs. singing and dancing)” Here what he writes:
Unfair things happen. You might be diagnosed with a disease, demoted for a mistake you didn't make, convicted of a crime you didn't commit. The ref might make a bad call, an agreement might be abrogated, a partner might let you down.
Our instinct is to fight these unfairnesses, to succumb if there's no choice, but to go down kicking and screaming. We want to make it clear that we won't accept injustice easily, we want to teach the system a lesson, we want them to know that we're not a pushover.
But will it change the situation? Will the diagnosis be changed, the outcome of the call be any different?
What if, instead, we went at it singing and dancing? What if we walked into our four-year prison sentence determined to learn more, do more and contribute more than anyone had ever dreamed? What if we saw the derailment of one path as the opportunity to grow or to invent or to find another path?
This is incredibly difficult work, but it seems far better than the alternative.
Yeah Right…. But on the other hand that sounds a lot like Richard Rohr’s ideas in Falling Upward. “We all become a well-disguised mirror image of anything that we fight too long or too directly. That which we oppose determines the energy and frames the questions after a while. You lose all your inner freedom.” I think I understand that better now. A good friend of mine is coming through some hard stuff that makes my life look like a cake walk. He told me the other day that he has been taking dance lessons. I wonder if he was thinking something similar to what Godin is on about. I feel challenged and inspired by Godin. I’m not sure I’ll start the dance lessons but look out!