A little rodent informed us in the northern climes that we can expect six more weeks of scarves and mitts. While contemplating my desire to join Punxsutawney Phil in hibernation, I found this article about a timeless movie, Groundhog Day:
One of my favorite movies features a weather forecaster who is sent on the “meaningless” assignment of covering “Groundhog Day” in the small, remote town of Punxsutawney, and then can’t leave because of a snowstorm.
He is stuck in more ways than one.
The movie is about his transformation when faced with the realizatin that he is also stuck in time, repeating exactly the same day over and over again. He awakens t the same radio announcement, the same weather, the same date. He encounters the exact same problems, the same people saying and doing the exact same things, day after day, after day.
He can’t do anything to get out of it. But he can, he gradually discovers, change his responses.
Because each day he has a fresh start, with no consequences from yesterday’s actions, he gets to make nasty retorts, do mean things, and even commit crimes. No one remembers what he did yesterday, or reacts differently tomorrow than they did at the start of today. All his bad behaviour is erased, and he gets to start over.
There’s only onbe problem. HE remembers what he did, and gets to live with the reality of who he is. Each day he is more and more miserable and frustrated, until…
Eventually he begins to try acts of kindness and generousity. Sometimes people react differently to him, sometimes they don’t. But he begins to change. he becomes different in his own eyes. He awakens to the reality that he has the power to make himself happy by his own thoughts and actions.
I was watching a self-help video today about change. What I teach and believe is that we each have creative power to experience what feels like the same day, over and over.
Does this sound familiar to you, too?
You wake up with the same problems, think the same thoughts, have the same feelings, the same patterns, the same fights, the same conversations, the same desires, the same discouragements.
For all your courage and effort, how much as your life really changed?
Sometimes, I catch myself thinking just waht I tell others not to think: if only this or that would change–how much money I have, the weather, the amount I got done today, my face, some other aspect of my body, the amount of criticism someone dumps on me, the amount of complaining my friend does–then I’d feel better.
But what if it doesn’t?
Are you stuck feeling awful forever?
If you can’t change your circumstances, what you can chang is yourself. You can change YOUR actions, YOUR thoughts, YOUR beliefs, YOUR attitude.
Like the guy in the movie, you and I have endless opportunities in which to practice doing something different when faced with those same old circumstances.
What would perfect your current circumstances?
I printed this article off to reference and now can’t find the source. I apologize to the author. If you find or know the source of this article, please e-mail me so I can acknowledge them.
Tags: change, groundhog day
