Choosing Our Own Path

So, I've been trying to watch some older movies lately. That's one of the great things about Netflix as opposed to Redbox, or even your local Blockbuster, you can get damn near anything from them. So I've been watching one "classic" movie for about every four or five new ones. This week I watched a movie from 1975 called The Passenger. It starred Jack Nicholson, and was obviously overshadowed that year, because that was the same year that One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest came out. I read somewhere that it is one of the few movies that Roger Ebert has ever gone back and changed his mind on. Having hated it at first, and eventually, years later, come to enjoy it quite a bit.

I don't plan on making this blog a movie review site, so I will simply say that I thought it was good, not great, with an ending that could have been much better. But it did get me thinking as to the way that we look at ourselves, and our lives. The movie is about a journalist, working in Africa, who has the opportunity to become someone else, literally. He takes on someone elses identity, and goes about living that person's life.

There is something extremely powerful about the allure of just chucking it all, and starting over as someone else. It is, in a way, the ultimate grass is greener scenario. It seemed to draw me back to a train of thought that you will often see running through my writing. The quest for happiness.

Most people in the world don't see much happiness on a daily basis. They should, because it's right there in front of them. All they have to do is open themselves up to it. But most people either wander through life with indifference and apathy, or if they're actively looking for something, it is something to complain about. The act of enjoying the simple things in life no longer applies. And I truly believe that it is getting worse. More and more people struggle with money, which causes stress, which causes them to be more unhappy. It is a cycle that becomes more difficult to break out of on a daily, monthly, yearly basis. So who wouldn't jump at the chance to pitch it all, and become someone else?

I believe that most people fail to see the forest for the trees. It is so hard, sometimes, to remain positive when there is so much tearing us down on a daily basis. But no matter where you are in your life, you can always make it better. It doesn't require wholesale change, but simply an opening of our minds to allow for a new viewpoint.

My favorite films are movies where the lead character truly "finds" themself. Lawrence of Arabia, Thelma and Louise, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Legends of the Fall... movies where the lead character(s) were lost souls, but were able to look inside, and change themselves for the better. Contrast that with The Passenger, where he so desperately wanted out of his life, that he would rather jump to the unknown problems of someone else, rather than face his own demons.

The problem for most of us, of course, is that we aren't given the choice to jump to someone else's life. We have to make our own fate, choose our own path to happiness or despair. I chose long ago to make myself a better person whenever the opportunity arose. I have certainly stumbled along the way, more than once. I've made some hideous choices, but have always owned up to them as well. And in the end, I never let those choices deter me from the personal growth that I always want to occur.

We have the opportunity, all of us, to grow, to learn, to advance ourselves, every day of our lives. It isn't easy, and it isn't always as immediately rewarding as we would like. But if you can walk that road, when you do get to the end of it (hopefully many, many years down the road for all of you), it will have been worth every hardship.

Be the change you wish to see in the world--Mahatma Ghandi

Who am I to try and say it better than that?