The movie Forrest Gump touched, moved, and inspired people 20+ years ago. The life lessons from the movie are just as relevant today as they were back in 1994. They give the movie it’s timeless nature.
This series is dedicated to listing the many life lessons from the movie that we can incorporate into our daily lives to feel more peace and love … and to live our lives with Gumption.
Randomness
At the beginning of the movie Forrest Gump, the feather floats from the sky and lands at Forrest’s foot. Life Lesson 01 is opportunities. Opportunities seem to appear like magic in our lives. The feather represents these opportunities.
The feather landing at Forrest’s foot was random. It appeared as if by magic. It appeared as it it had a mind of its own. It was luck. Chance. Randomness.
External events – and other people – occur randomly to our lives. We – as individuals – do not have control over others or events. We do not have control over external events. They all occur independent of our hopes, wishes, and desires.
But here is the good news. Internally, we do have control. We have control over our responses. We have control over how we respond to external events. So in reality, we do have total control over three very important things:
- Our thoughts
- Our actions
- And how we choose to interact with others
By taking 100% personal responsibility for our thinking, actions, and interactions with others, we can influence external forces – but we still cannot control them. They are going to occur independent of our wishes and desires. In that sense, all external forces occur randomly to us.
Forrest Gump seemed to understand this concept. He didn’t fret, worry, and complain about the things he couldn’t control. He accepted life’s randomness. He thrived when new opportunities magically appeared. He took advantage of these opportunities by having a positive outlook. He made the best of situations by taking action. And he worked and played well with others to a mutual benefit. Forrest regularly turned random events into personal good fortune.
Here are several random events that occurred to Forrest and which he benefited:
- Meeting Jenny
- Being forced to run from the bully boys
- The coach being in the stands when Forrest ran across the field from the bully boys
- Meeting the army recruiter after graduating from college
- Meeting Bubba
- Meeting Lt. Dan
- Being shot in the buttocks
- The hurricane
- The people he met, influenced, and lead as he ran across America
Forrest turned random encounters and events into life-long friends and opportunities.
While we can not control external forces from showing up and impacting our lives, we can control how we choose to respond. We get to choose the meaning.
And despite not being able to control how others act, we can choose how we interact with them.
We can control our internal response to other people and events. We can control the way we think, act, and interact with others.
What random things are you trying to control? … to no avail?