I Hope You Dance Like Nobody is Watching

This past week while I was driving, I was listening to the radio and the song I Hope You Dance by Lee Ann Womack came on. It’s a nice sounding song but it is one of those that you tune out and use as background music while you are doing something else. One line from the song did hit me though. The line is “Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens”. After hearing that line, I started paying more attention to the rest of the lyrics. Sometimes you can hear a song 100 times and it will only hit you on the 101^st time.

The whole song is about living life to the fullest. To make sure that you don’t take anything for granted and that you really appreciate the little things in life. It tells you not to be afraid of taking chances because even if they are mistakes, they are worth making because the risk of not taking them is just too great.

The song is all about giving advice to get lucky. It tells us never to lose our “sense of wonder” because when that happens, we get stuck in a place in life and lock out all the luck that can come our way. A sense of wonder can lead to infinite discoveries and possibilities that you can bring into your life which lead to luckortunity.

The one line that caught my ear though is one of the lines that are advice in the form of hope. Another line is the title of the song “And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance. I hope you dance”. I like that the song uses advice in the form of hope because advice can only go so far. People can give you great advice, you can go to 100 seminars, you can read 1000 books, but in the end, all we can do is hope that it sinks in and that you take the advice and do something with it. Action is the most powerful thing of all.

The way to make sure that “when one door closes” that “one more opens” is to keep as many options open as possible. Keep your mind open and always keep learning. The more you learn and know, the more options you have.

On a very simple basic level to get the point across, imagine a print newspaper that is losing its entire readership. The door is closing. The door that opens is the entire online market. The only way to take advantage of this door opening is by being educated and keeping up with the times.

The last point and the theme of the song “when you get the choice to sit it out or dance. I hope you dance”, is something that every single person can follow every day of his life. Whenever an opportunity comes along, jump on it and make sure you take advantage of it because if you don’t you will end up sitting it out and watching someone else take advantage of the opportunity. There is a saying “dance like nobody is watching”. Jump on opportunities and don’t care about what the world around you thinks. Don’t let negative people convince you not to take the opportunities when they show up because if you do, you will never get lucky or get ahead in life. So when you get the chance to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance like nobody is watching.