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Performance Standard

blog-63-fifties-dance

Brenda’s Blog – March 8, 2016

“Do you love me – now that I can dance?”

As a child of the 50s and 60s, I grew up with rock and roll… the real stuff… the “Rock Around The Clock” type. When ads for nostalgic record collections play, I temporarily drift back to high school dances. And then almost immediately I think of my yearbook with smiling faces of “Best Dancers.” My picture wasn’t there.

We grew up in the golden age of peacetime economic growth and promise. We received advantages unafforded to any other generation. We thrived – but we learned about behavior modification and manipulation.

“Do you love me (do you love me); Do you love me (do you love me); Do you love me – now that I can dance?” Our music didn’t advocate drug use, misogynistic philosophies, or violence, but messages of people pleasing washed over us.

Young women sat by phones on weekends mimicking Vikki Carr’s prayer:” Let it please be him, oh dear God, it must be him, it must be him; or I shall die, or I shall die.” Messages of women without men as losers plagued and punished us. We bought into the simplistic rules of “The Book of Love.”

Thankfully, we learned we wouldn’t die and we learned that dancing wasn’t the only road to love and happiness.

Sadly, performance based relationships didn’t disappear with the demise of these heart wrenching ballads. When I took my first corporate position this advice was given to me: “Know what makes Papa smile and know what makes Papa frown.”

Understanding personality and communication styles is a healthy skill; sacrificing personal development and adopting a false persona to advance is unhealthy.

Finding your own path and eschewing the roads strewn with people pleasing traps is part of the maturing processing. If you are a dancer, swing on, but not because it brings love, but because it brings great joy.

Where do you shine? Where is your “best” picture? Identify and personify – find success because you are the very best “you.”

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