When choreographing a song, there are an infinite
number of possibilities of what movement to use. As I go through a song, the possibilities
are narrowed because (for my purposes) I really only want to have 3 or 4 combinations,
as this makes the dance easier to learn.
In statistics, there is a term, “degrees of freedom.” This means that if, for example, you are
working with 10 subjects in an experiment, when you choose the first subject to
study, there are 10 choices (or degrees of freedom). When you choose the second subject, you now
have 9 degrees of freedom, and so on.
When you get to the 10th subject, you have no other choice,
so “degrees of freedom” is defined mathematically as n (the number, in this
case 10) minus 1.
I found this concept fascinating, especially because
I was considering it from an adult perspective rather than the teenage/young
adult point of view I had when I first learned about it.
When I am going down a certain path, whether it is a
personal or professional issue, I try to make the best “right” decision,
moment-to-moment. It’s like, “OK, what’s
the next right step NOW?” I used to (and
it’s a hard habit to break) try to look ahead and make decisions based on what
I imagined was going to happen. It didn’t
work well.
I find that we do have degrees of freedom in our
lives. We make one decision, and then
take the next step and the next until finally there is a point at which there
is only one decision, one door, to choose.
When enabling a person we love, we choose every step to “help” – but sometimes
those steps are not helpful. Yet we try
them again and again because we can’t bear to choose that last degree of
freedom. It’s too scary. So instead of going forward, we go backward
or in circles. In the end, though, we are faced with that last degree. There’s one choice left. So we close our eyes, take a deep breath, and
choose that last degree of freedom because nothing else has worked.
There is a strange comfort when we are finally faced
with that one choice, the extreme, the one we swore we’d never do. But when it’s the only one left, we just have
to take the leap.
What I’ve found is that, even though that final
degree is the scary one, every step I took that I felt was right led to this
final one. And this final choice, no
matter how hard, has produced results that I thought I would never see. It was worth it. It put me and those I love on another, better
path.
I am forever grateful to this process.
What is your final degree of freedom? When you get to your n-1, it can set you
free.
