With what's being called 'the storm of the century' heading straight for southern Ontario, it's a pretty sure bet that Wiarton Willie won't be seeing his shadow. Whether that means we'll have an early spring or not remains to be seen, but perhaps this Groundhog Day, February 2nd, will be a good day to stay home with a good movie. May I suggest Groundhog Day?
Surely you remember Groundhog Day, the 1993 movie starring Bill Murray? He played a Pittsburgh television weatherman who gets stuck in a time loop on Groundhog Day. Every morning when the alarm went off, he was back in the day he had just lived through the day before. For a time he went wild, living hedonistically, then becoming depressed, then seeing the possibilities and using the time to take on new challenges. He learned to play the piano, speak French and ice sculpt.
Groundhog Day has been listed as one of the culturally important movies of all time. Because it ultimately is a story of self-improvement and even spiritual transcendence, it's also viewed by many as a deeply spiritual film. It tells us that we need to look inside to find life satisfaction, rather than seeking it from external things.
While of course the movie is a fable and none of us are literally stuck in time, unfortunately some of us live our lives as though we are. The lyrics of the 2003 song, Groundhog Days, by the rock band, Manic Street Preachers touches a chord,
"Waking up again,
To the same old thing,
To the same old songs,
To the same old pain."
Do you follow the same old patterns of behaviour, patterns that haven't worked for you before and aren't likely to work for you in the future? Do you make the same mistakes over and over? Do you make poor choices in jobs, partners, or living arrangements? Are you a yo-yo dieter? Do you join the gym every January and give up before February? Do you let your bills get overdue every month or spend too much on your credit card when you know you won't be able to pay it off by the due date?
Are you living your own version of Groundhog Day – same behaviours, same choices, same mistakes – over and over and over? Remember what Albert Einstein said, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
Imagine that your life is a big book. Open it to the page where today is being written. All of the pages up to this point have been written in – the story of your life so far. All of the pages from this point forward are empty. You have the opportunity to write a new story. Are you going to? Or are you going to cut and paste from your past?
The old saying, 'Today is the first day of the rest of your life" might be trite, but it's true. You get to choose whether you're going to repeat the past or write a new story. Stop living life in rewind. Start living a life of conscious choice. Create the life you were meant to live.
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