Riot and Frolic

a mostly ballroom dance, but also a bunch of other stuff, blog

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I own and rock people’s faces off teaching ballroom dancing at Dancers Studio in St. Paul, MN. My husband and I compete professionally in American style and wrangle eight children in our spare time. I’ve been teaching and competing in ballroom dancing for over 25 years and have lots of opinions on it. I am an expert by any means, but there are quite a few dancers who are better than me and I have a solid knowledge of basic technique, so suck it.

Want = Sacrifice

I was waxing philosophical on my run today, thinking of my motivations to be a runner.  Like, why would I really run, not just lace up my shoes every 10 days and jog about the neighborhood (like I have been doing this summer).  

running

photo courtesy of Diestler!

There are a lot of reasons I'd like to call myself a runner again (let's admit that I haven't jogged much since the marathon last fall), but my main topic of thought was:

Does 'want' equal sacrifice? 

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Why do I want to run?  In fact, why does anyone want  to do anything?  

While my life isn't exactly cushy, I'm not uncomfortable in any way.  I get enough sleep, eat enough food, have a roof over my head, electricity, a gym membership, a fun job, great friends and family… Well, maybe it IS cushy.  

I WANT to be a runner; I WANT to lose 10 pounds; I WANT to get sponsors for mah blog; I WANT to do LOTS of things.  But all of those things require me to DO something: to sacrifice time, energy, delicious food, pride, etc.

If you want something, isn't it slightly out of reach?  Because if it wasn't out of reach, you would just have it.  But what makes us want something that is out of reach?  

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Any ideas?  Give me your best psychological/philosophical review.  Comments are welcome! 

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One year ago: LLLL, in which we party.

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4 responses to “Want = Sacrifice”

  1. Ashley Elizabeth Avatar
    Ashley Elizabeth

    I don’t know that want equals sacrifice, but to move from “want to be” to “I am” takes commitment.
    Yes, I want to be a stellar dancer, but do I want to put in the time? I don’t consider it a sacrifice of time because you have to do something with your time anyway, might as well not be watching TV right? The trick is deciding what that thing is that you are going to commit your time to. I hate making the choice because that means that I am probably going to be pretty terrible at whatever it is for a while… and I hate that. I hate it enough to avoid deciding on what to focus on. I then surround myself with a dozen things that I WANT to prove to myself that I am clearly too diverse to decide on anything because, let’s face it, I would probably eventually be awesome at all of those things on my list.
    That would be me lying to myself. I can have/be all of those things I WANT (to the degree that I am capable of learning/doing them) if I just decide to do one at a time and get moving. I just make a trillion reasons why I can’t make a decision and I continue to WANT things rather than achieve things.
    I finally stopped saying “I want to be a dancer” and started saying “I am a dancer” and it made a huge difference in the way I look at things, carry myself and perform.
    Be a runner, even if you only get in a run once in a while.

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  2. Shanon Avatar
    Shanon

    I had an answer, but then you Cumberbatched me.

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  3. Riot and Frolic Avatar
    Riot and Frolic

    Recently, I was looking over my goals and was very surprised to find I had accomplished many of them (like, A MAJORITY). Over the years, I’ve found that just the act of writing down what you want is a huge means of accomplishing it. So, I’m writing down ALL THE THINGS.
    I also do the self-destructive, do it all great (but not really) route. Focus is important, balance is important, why is EVERYTHING important?
    I am a dancer. I am a runner. I am a writer.
    [Just practicing.]

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  4. Riot and Frolic Avatar
    Riot and Frolic

    Ha! I snorted when I read this. Excellent verb.

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