There’s a part in the movie "It's A Wonderful Life," where George Bailey connects with a single physical link to his real world, the rose petals he removed from Zuzu's prize rose. He sets them in his watch pocket and they add a dose of sanity to his insanity plagued alternate world where he never existed. It is all fantasy of course. Yet, there is this allure to thinking that when things go horribly wrong for us, it's all just a bad dream where we need but wake up and it's all okay again, or certainly not the nightmare we're in.
Life isn't quite so simple. We can't run to a
bridge and save an angel from the frigid waters, all the while we get whisked
into a parallel universe that shows the impact of our existence. To prove the
point to us that we did and do matter. Of course we have left an impact on the
world. Every day we manage to touch another life. Some of it is good, some
amazing and some less so. Just because crap happens doesn't necessarily mean
you brought it upon yourself or that it was destiny.
Every moment of every day, we all face
choices. We can choose to be honest or dishonest. Fact versus fiction. Real
versus unreal. To me, it is all as simple as that. It's all the same. How we
treat others matters because it leaves an impression long after you are gone,
or crossed the street never to look back. How we treat others does define who
we are. It matters, whether they matter to us or not, because they all matter.
Zuzu's petals. A metaphorical connection to a
world George knows and loves, even with the pending hardships. His world is
crashing down on him, yet he embraced it as it was a better world than the one
he was running towards. Then the truth shows that all his previous choices of
goodness and sacrifice were never forgotten. Sure, it is a bit of a fantasy
world, that once upon a time where people do live happily ever after.
That isn't the real world, where it's all
about "what have you done for me lately" and the good we have done is
quickly forgotten. My own world is crashing before me. Nothing is working any
more. The rules that used to work don't. Still, I have my own
"petals" to cling to. For me, it's not about trying to regain
something that I have lost. It's about remembering to not allow
"this" to change me from who I am. I've seen some go through ordeals
and they come out of it different from who they were and in a less good way.
They get jaded and cynical and become less the person they were. They feel it's
okay to lie and deceive because everyone else does it, and they get away with
it, so that makes it right. Personally, I don't do well with deception, giving
or delivering. I never have. It's been done to me too much and the pain with
some of it still lingers. Sure, I likely could be a richer man were I
comfortable with it, but I'm not. My integrity means far too much to me. So the
idea that I would distort something for my personal gain isn't really going to
happen.
For me, my "petals" are many and
their purpose is to make sure I remain being "me" throughout this
chapter in my life. I hope that even in the worst of my days, those days where
I do want to get on that bridge because it has become too much to bear, that
they help me to remember me. To not forget who I am or why I am me. If I lose
me, then I have lost everything that there is to be lost.
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