How Two Great Lines From A Holiday Movie Can Help Put Your Life Into Perspective

There is a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday movie out titled Home for the Holidays. Directed by Penny Marshall and starring Holly Hunter and at least 8 other great movie stars, I consider it a classic and am surprised it is not played as often around Thanksgiving as the movie A Christmas Story is played at Christmas time.

The story is about a woman going home on the Thanksgiving holiday and having to deal with her crazy family as well as all the chaos going on in her life.

Two scenes from the movie really stick with me; not only during the holidays, but truly all year long. I find myself using them time and time again during stressful times.

The first is a scene when Holly Hunter’s character asks the guy she is interested in how he does it. How he keeps so calm when life is so filled with chaos? He answers by singing a line from a Diana Krall song; “ I pick myself up, dust myself off..and start all over again.” She is so impressed with that thought that she sings it to herself as well. I find myself often singing that line to myself when I find myself hitting one of life’s “brick walls”.

The second scene I think about often is when Holly’s teenage daughter gives her own advice to her mother before she leaves for her stressful trip.

She reminds her mother of when they went on a tropical vacation together and went snorkeling. She tells her mother to remember how calm and peaceful it was when they were just gently floating among the beautiful tropical fish without a care in the world. She told her mother to remember that feeling when the rest of her world starts driving her nuts. “Just Float.”

I love “Just Float”. I use it all the time. When I’ve just gotten off the phone with a customer service agent who refuses to hear what I am saying or my young son who is also very good at blocking me out, I say to myself “Just Float” When I am fighting with some mechanical device that refuses to cooperate or can’t make head or tails of instructions that are supposed to be “so easy a child could do it” I tell myself to “Just Float“.

I truly believe that sometimes we aren’t meant to paddle all of the time. Sometimes it is our job to “Just Float”. To remain calm; to rise to the surface. To quietly observe; to gain back our perspective. To remain unaffected as life’s waves move gently beneath us, until we catch our breath; until an easier way is presented to us.

So the next time you find yourself paddling upstream to the point where you want to scream take a deep breath, exhale and “Just Float.”

Till Tomorrow and Happy Creating!