In the movie Forrest Gump, Forrest neatly moves from one life chapter to another.
First, he’s a boy.
Then he’s in high school.
Then he’s in college playing football.
Forrest then joins the Army as a foot soldier.
He becomes a ping-pong champion.
After being discharged, he becomes a struggling shrimperman.
Then he finds success as a shrimperman.
A wise investment in a fruit company makes him a gazillionaire.
Forrest then runs across America.
He reunites with Jenny (again) and learns he’s a father.
He marries. Jenny dies. And the feather floats off.
Your own life journey is similar when the perspective of time is used as the barometer. Movies have the ability to orderly group events. Real life comes at us in never ending waves.
Everyday living is much different than the movies or a simple graph. The barometer of life barely moves on a daily basis.
Projects and life chapters don’t neatly start at the same moment that others end. Occasionally there are defining moments like a wedding, the birth of a child, or the start of a new job but for the most part, your journey of life is a series of overlapping projects, chapters, and just plan daily living.
Maintaining a perspective of the big picture is important. The start of a new year and your birthday are markers that naturally remind you to stop and view life’s major achievements. They’re a moment in time when you can reminisce about the many shoes that you’ve worn.
What if we bring an awareness of our life journey into each and every day? Would our daily journey of life take on a more important meaning? Would living fully each day become more important than the milestones of life?
Would happiness and frustration become less different? And more similar?
Would purposefulness and wasting time become the same?
Would integrity become thinking, doing, and saying the same things? Not with the goal of pleasing others, but with the purpose of sleeping well at night?
Seems to me that the life journey of Forrest Gump and the way he lived his daily journey of life were indeed one and the same.
It’s not the destination … it’s the journey where true happiness and success are found.
Pretty good lesson from a guy with an IQ of seventy-five.
Next Blog Title: Have you ever seen it done that way?
Next Blog Date: May 24, 2012