Life lessons from Zumba: #1 - The Five Minute Rule of Survival

There have been moments in just about every Zumba class I've taken so far in which I've pretty much just wanted to die.  I mean, seriously.  What sane woman gets in her car and drives 20 minutes for the privilege of dripping with sweat and looking ridiculous for an hour?  (This is the sort of question I am usually asking myself about 10 minutes in...)

Zumba is hard.  It's fast-paced.  It's intense.  It requires you to be confident.  (More on that in another post.)  It takes a great deal of energy and concentration, and a certain degree of coordination.  And there are moments when the sole thing that prevents me from just quitting in the middle of some of those complicated routines is my concern about what a roomful of women I don't really know would think if I did.  (I realize this is illogical.  And unhealthy.  But hey, it works...)

But here's the thing: no matter how hard a dance is - no matter how tricky the footwork, how complicated the combination, how much my muscles scream in protest, how tired I am, how uncoordinated I am, or how embarrassed I feel - the truth is, it's going to be over in five minutes.  The song will end, we'll take a breather and get a drink of water and we'll move on to something else.  And it might be an easier dance, or it might be one that's even more difficult - but either way, that'll only be five minutes, too.  You can do anything for five minutes.  String twelve sets of five minutes together, and congratulations, you just survived a Zumba class.  Again.  (Insert sense of accomplishment here.)

There are moments in life that are a little like that moment of "Wow, I must be insane" in Zumba class.  There are things that happen that we wish hadn't.  Conversations that don't go well.  Emotions that overwhelm us.  Patterns we can't seem to break.  Trials that feel like they will never end.

But news flash: they will.  They're not here to stay.  This is only a season.  It's a metaphorical five minutes.  You will get through this.

So whatever it is for you - whatever the current trial(s) is(are) - look at those things and remember the Five Minute Rule of Survival:

You can do anything for five minutes.

And when it's over?  You'll have persevered - and won.  It's worth pushing through to get there.

"Therefore we do not lose heart.  Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all." - 2 Corinthians 7:14

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