The Movies With Life Lessons
Every movie has something to say to us – the story, dialogues, lessons, etc. Some movies leave us with thoughts to ponder and life-altering lessons. Today I wanted to share with you 3 such life lessons that have really impacted my life in a positive way. Hope you too would find them worth a thought.
1. It was the year 2016. I was switching channels and happened to watch a scene from the movie 'Mom's Night Out'. Allyson, mother of three, was struggling to move through her day with a lot to be done with her three children around. The chaos around her was baffling and I could feel her struggle and panic right through the screen. Now there was this scene that turned out to be a reinventing moment for me.
What is a reinventing moment? It is that moment in life where you go through an experience or move through a situation which prompts you to take a look at life from a new perspective.
The result being a New Improved You. In this scene Allyson was cleaning the wall where her children had drawn some sketches. She looked at the wall, the sketches, and she stopped momentarily.
That moment was her moment to reinvent within the chaos of her life. The result was a nice wooden frame hung around each of the drawings on the wall. Life gave her a problem to solve - to clean the drawings off the wall, and she found a way to decorate the wall with the sketches. The anger, the work, the messy situation, all fizzled out in that moment. The drawings were kept intact, she was saved from the problem of cleaning the wall and she was also able to preserve the work done by her children. It took just three wooden frames to change a problem into something beautiful!
This prompted me to think about how we can turn our problems around and do something constructive with them. Life has such moments for each one of us. We can reinvent ourselves, change our outlook/perspective and make it beautiful.
2. There was an intriguing question from a Monk in the movie 'Bulletproof Monk'. "Why do hot dogs come in packs of ten and hot dog buns come only in packs of eight?" The Monk had put this question to a novice martial artist as a riddle, which the novice was able to answer towards the end of the movie as he gained enlightenment. The answer to this intriguing question was that you never know how life will turn out in the end so you need to be prepared for all outcomes.
This is a beautiful lesson in being able to be flexible in life and willing to ADAPT according to the situation life throws you into.
3. There is a very powerful and effective dialogue from the 2015 movie 'Bridge Of Spies'. The movie is based on the story of a lawyer James B. Donovan who is entrusted with negotiating the release of a US pilot from Soviet Union in exchange for a Soviet KGB spy Rudolf Abel or Fisher as he was called. At a critical point in the movie, Donovan informs Abel, "I have a mandate to serve you. Nobody else does. Quite frankly, everybody else has an interest in sending you to the electric chair." The response from an extremely calm Rudolf Abel is a simple, "All right..."
An astonished Donovan asks Abel, "You don't seem alarmed." Abel again surprises us with his calm reply, "Would it help?"
When the two are heading for sentencing Abel, Donovan asks Abel again, “Do you ever worry?” to which he again responds in a very calm tone, “Would it help?”
Later Abel says in his unwavering voice, “I’m not afraid to die. Although it would not be my first choice.”
The character of Abel is that of a person in full control over his life and emotions. He remains calm in the most stressful situations a person can be in. His response, 'Would it help?' holds the key for his control. He is so clear in his thought process and knows that worrying will not help in altering the situation and that brings the calmness from him which keeps him stress free. He keeps his mind stress free even in a situation where he knows he will be sentenced to death.
When we are fully aware that worrying will not resolve a situation, then why should we worry.
As I recollect these scenes, I realise that it is not just entertainment alone, but movies can give us food for thought and make us see life with a new and improved perspective.