What’s Meaningful to Me About Groundhog Day?

We’re just over a week away from Groundhog Day. It’s a day that carries special significance to me, as my late husband and I were married on February 2^nd.

Day after day has gone by since then, and that milestone event now seems like a couple of lifetimes ago.

Day after day goes by, like pages being turned in a book, and once that page is read, it makes way for the rest of the story, however it’s to unfold. That’s just how life is.

It’s not like the movie, Groundhog Day, where the exact same day goes by day after day … where the same scenes play out like clockwork exactly the way they did “yesterday” … day after day after day.

But there’s a wrinkle in the sameness. (Good thing or the movie would be one helluva bore.)

The scenes all start the same way, but we don’t know how they’ll play out. That all depends on how the lead character chooses to behave and his “beingness,” especially around how he chooses to relate to other people.

The movie is very clever and well crafted. And yet, the setup is the stuff of fantasy.

Days don’t repeat and give us multiple chances to come at life afresh on every new day and play out our roles in different ways … ways we’re happier with and more proud of … ways that bring us the kind of satisfying, even heartwarming, results both we and those around us want.

Wait a minute!

Yeah, okay, maybe they don’t repeat exactly in a make believe Hollywood kinda way, but don’t our days feature multiple chances to think differently and more expansively about important things? Aren’t we offered multiple opportunities to relate more harmoniously and lovingly with the people we encounter routinely and behave more creatively and constructively in challenging situations?

In other words, doesn’t the day after day march of time give us plenty of opportunities to get better at the business of living our lives?

In a sense, every day is Groundhog Day, because every new day represents the chance for a fresh start, a more meaningful level of engagement, and a happier ending … a “do over” if you will.

You get to make it be the way you want it to be … or at least better than it was.

And it starts with asking, “What would my ideal world look like and what role would I have to play to make it so.”

From there, like Bill Murray in the movie, you learn through trial and error. With experience … sometimes via frustration, disappointment, and hard knocks … you grow and deepen your understanding of what makes your world work and what constitutes a life well lived. And you move further in that direction.

And isn’t that all you can ask of the future … that your world works better and you love your life that much more than days past?

Day after day goes by.

Tomorrow is yet another day in a string of days … days that seems to go on forever.

Seem to … but, alas, will not

So, what are you going to make of your tomorrow?

I ask, because this isn’t a movie, and it’s the only day exactly like it you and I will ever have.

How about we make the most of it?

Love,