Perspectives

By Bonnie Harris

Ok, I admit it. I'm a Dancing With The Stars junky. I love watching people who excel in one area of life, taking on the challenge of a completely different thing. The growth that happens emotional, physical and in so many other ways is incredible. Often times the stars are quoted saying things like, "I never knew dancing would be so hard." "I wasn't prepared for the challenge and difficulty the training would be." How many times have we found ourselves saying, "If you only did what I did, then you'd understand." or "You have no idea how hard my job is." It's interesting to see what happens once someone does take on the challenge of learning something new.

This last week, one of the stars, Kym Johnson, was seriously injured. I cringe even thinking about it. Thankfully she's alright and was able to dance and incredible Tango routine, that earned perfect marks, with her partner MVP Pro Football Player Hines Ward. What I found so compelling about the whole situation was the response from Kym and from Hines.

Kym's first response was how they didn't have time for the injury. There was too much to do. Hines on the other hand said he wasn't even thinking about the competition, he just prayed she'd be OK. Isn't it interesting how drastically different their initial responses were. It made me think of Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum when they were shot at Carthledge Jail. Hyrum said, I've been shot and Joseph called out to his Father in heaven. Two completely different responses.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not being judgmental in way. It just got me thinking about different perspectives and made me wonder how well do I know my characters. If my characters were in similar situations, what would their perspectives be? Would they be the ones worrying about practices or about the persons recovery. What would the first words out of their mouth be?

Then it snowballed and I put myself in the perspective shoes. How would I react? What would I say? I've often found that I say something like, I would like to think I'd react this way, but I really don't know. So, how well do I know myself then? It's given me food for thought.

In a nutshell, I hope we can all get to know our characters (and ourselves) well enough to be able to put them in a trying situation and know exactly what they would say and how they would react.

Here's a video of the fall and the inspiring end results. You can also see it on abc.com. It's the fourth tab in. (Side note: They earned a standing ovation from the audience and the judges which is unusual. All of the judges spoke highly of them. Hines couldn't control the tears and one of the judges was choked up. She said that Hines went above and beyond what is expected of the dancers in the matter of partnering Kym. If you'd like to hear their comments, they are on the abc.com link.)