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Summary

    For Dr. Jeannette Potts, a Cleveland Clinic specialist in male urology and holistic healer also known as “Dr. Tango,” nothing compares to dance — and one dance in particular. Find your tango, she writes, and you’ll discover your bliss.
    “When I conduct workshops,” she writes in Tango: Lessons for Life, “I’m using tango as a tool to spark awareness. My question to you is: What is your tango?” But you don’t need dancing shoes to take these tango lessons.
    In her very approachable book, she guides and encourages readers to find their own tango — danceable or otherwise. To Potts, tango — literally, the dance — means so much more than any assemblage of dance steps. She is able to bring the dance to bear on many other aspects of life:

1.    You define the boundaries and rules of any engagement. If someone or something makes you uncomfortable — or doesn’t respect you —leave immediately.
2.    If you anticipate too much, you’ll kill the moment.
3.    You accomplish more and greater things when you work as a team.
4.    Trust in yourself and look like you know what you’re doing, and you’ll do well.

    So much of Tango the book and tango the dance follows these principles. Don’t dance with a domineering partner; don’t work for a domineering boss. Don’t try to plan every step; don’t plan every minute of your day. You can’t dance without a partner; you can’t make your way entirely alone. Fake it until you make it.
    Potts makes her living as a urologist for The Cleveland Clinic. She helps (mostly) men deal with (often) some of the most difficult physical problems they can face.
    Essentially, it boils down to this: Relax, and enjoy yourself. You’ll feel better and — a shock here — you’ll enjoy yourself. So much of modern life is about rushing and working and being so busy that we never slow down to see and appreciate what we have in front of us — a beautiful day, a funny joke or a good friend.
    But she also writes of the importance of truly seeing what’s in front of you. No amount of pills or surgery will change the fact that your body ages and decays; you will die someday. Much of the music and the songs you tango to are quite melancholy. To truly see life — to truly live — one must account for sadness and death.
    “We embrace the melancholy as we do the joy,” Potts writes in her opening chapter. “Both are equally valuable, significant and beautiful. Both are part of life. Society would have us dodge unpleasantness, yet the unpleasant things are what make us grow. There is no hiding, no mirages of solace.”
    Take Potts’ advice: Look around and see what’s there. Find your tango, and enjoy it.

Tango: Lessons in Life. By Dr. Jeannette Potts, M.D.

$9.95. ISBN 978-1-59624-040-7. Cleveland Clinic Press.

MEET DR. POTTS