Monday, December 13, 2010

Item #34: Good Learning from a Bad Movie









I watched Eat Pray Love a few weeks ago. It was not a very good movie, though I quite enjoyed the book, but regardless, I can call out three good messages in the movie for further consideration. One is just a good piece of insight and two others are actually little life exercises you might want to try out for yourself.

#1: The Texan Richard talks to Julia Roberts, who has just arrived in India in search of what she refers to as “just a little peace”. His response: “To get to the castle, you have to swim the moat”. He is explaining a basic truth in life in my opinion. In my experience, if you want real accomplishment of any kind: personal maturity, career achievement, inner peace, emotional growth, you’ve got to first expend the energy and battle the monsters along the path. My guess is that the greatest riches await the ones who swim the most treacherous moats.

#2: In a conversation with her New York friend, who had recently had a baby, they discuss what is inside ‘the box under the bed’. For the friend with the new baby, the box under her bed held little items she had collected and saved as she was dreaming of the baby: pieces of patterned fabric, little pieces of baby’s clothing, small toys. Julia Roberts responds that ‘the box under her bed’ contains travel-related images: photos, region guides, maps of faraway places to visit. This ‘box under the bed’ thing may just be an interesting tool to uncover personal insight. What would be contained in ‘the box under your bed’ should you have one? And what does that illuminate about the things that matter to you most?

#3: Finally, while in Rome, some new friends ask Julia Roberts what “her one word would be”. She thinks about “daughter”, “wife”, “girlfriend”, and concludes that none of them fit for her. She proposes “writer” as her word, because in the movie that is her vocation. One of the new Roman friends tells her that is “what she does, not who she is” and therefore not the best choice as ‘her one word’. Prompts me to think this might be another thoughtful thing to consider. What would be your ‘one word’? The one word that is not what you do, but who you are?

Anyway, hope you might have a little fun with these thoughts. And at the very least we know that even a bad movie might yield some good!

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