Over the weekend I was at the Festival of Trees watching the dancing performances.

As I was watched I was reminded of my days performing dances at very similar events.  (believe it or not, I did Latin and jazz dance performances when I was younger)

Dancing when done at a high level is meant to be smooth, elegant, and look effortless.

The proceeding terms are the opposite of what it looked like when I performed.  If you watched me dance as a youngster it was probably better described as bumbling and blundering.

Ha!  In reality, I wasn’t bad and yet I wasn’t good and I sure didn’t feel like I could keep up.

This seems to be my modem operandi.

I bumble and blunder my way through life learning as I go.

As a matter of fact, bumbling and blundering is how we all learn and grow.  As we age many of us forget that blundering and bumbling are a part of the process.

We get so concerned with looking good and caring what other people think that we stop trying and learning new things.

Joy and fulfillment are unlocked with the keys of learning and progress.

On top of that many of the world’s greatest inventions were a result of the bumbles and blunders of people trying to solve a completely different problem than the one they find the solution to.

When you’re feeling like everybody is better than you or like you have two left feet or as if there’s some skill you weren’t born with remind yourself that it’s okay to bumble and blunder your way along (everybody else is doing it too) and there may be gold at some point along the trail.


Brett “Bumbling and Blundering” Denton