“Groundhog Day” in Reverse

Do you recall the movie--a classic in my view--Groundhog Day (1993)? For me, it features up there with The Shawshank Redemption, Contact, and Pulp Fiction as movies that made a tremendous impact on me at the time.

I can still recall being captivated at the thinking processes of Bill Murray’s character, especially as one failed attempt after another to woo Andie MacDowell’s character convinced him eventually toward genuine chivalry. He used the repeated events of Groundhog Day to learn how to win the girl as well as the favour of everyone else he came into daily contact with.

Can you envisage twisting the plot a little... and applying it to your own life?

Imagine living a life where every single day you woke up and it was Christmas day. Take it further now to a situation where each successive day--for you and your loved ones who you spend time with at Christmas--meant you and they were a year older. You and they would literally have only a few months of these Christmas days to live, but each day would (at least) be Christmas day.

Each day only you would notice everyone getting older. Over a week, a seven year old son or daughter would transform gradually into a teenager--their childhoods vanishing before your eyes. Your parents would go from being relatively healthy to ailing to dying in such a short time.

And what about the conversation? You would be the only one who wouldn’t know what the previous year’s milestones and history was. You’d feel alien in your own family.

If this was reality we’d miss out on so much.

In some ways life really is like this. With each milestone day (birthdays, Christmases etc) that comes we get to face the end of our time; it is coming… one more down and only so many more to go.

There is a thread of truth to the concept of Groundhog Day for all our lives, but it actually works in reverse. Life doesn’t slow down, if anything it picks up in pace.

It’s simply a further reminder to make the most of every opportunity to enjoy life and not put off the things that are truly important, like spending time with the kids and our parents, having a laugh, watching a good movie, or creating a ‘bucket list’ of significant goals and striking the items off one at a time.

Copyright © 2009, S. J. Wickham. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.