Transcending "Groundhog Day"

“Groundhog Day” is a great film because it captures so well the dilemma of being a human being and also offers a way to transcend that dilemma.

You know the story. A pompous weatherman from Pittsburgh (Phil Connors) gets stuck in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania because of a snowstorm. He is also stuck in February 2^nd, Groundhog Day, waking up each day to the same day, over and over and over again until, finally, he wakes up to a new day.

In essence, this is our fate. We know what tomorrow will be like and, with some variation, it will be just like today. Few of us will wake up in the morning and completely alter the circumstances of our lives. The circumstances may alter without our active intervention, but we’re not likely to quit our jobs, end our relationships, leave our children behind and run off to Bali or wherever we have dreamed of being. Some people do but they are usually running from the law.

In fact, a change in our circumstances may cause us to yearn for “Groundhog Day.” For example, people who have lost jobs or homes probably wish to get their old life back. The uncertainty of this economy may have you wishing for your own “Groundhog Day.”

Even as the day changes to February 3^rd, nothing really alters for Phil Connors either. In fact, at the end of the movie as he is walking with the woman he loves he says, “Let’s live here forever.” But if he does, he will meet the same people, he will eventually hear Sonny and Cher singing, “I’ve got You Babe,” the song he woke up to every morning when it was always February 2^nd and he will likely return to his job predicting the weather. Even if he returns to Pittsburgh, he will mostly interact with the same people he did when he left for Punxsutawney.

So why is Phil Connors happy? You could say, as he does, that it’s simply change that has made him happier. But a little reflection proves the fallacy of that reasoning. For awhile, a new car, job or relationship makes us happy. But eventually the car, relationship and job become “Groundhog Day.”

I suggest that what alters Phil’s world is that he sees something that had been a blind spot for him. He sees that it really makes no difference if he has to repeat the same day over and over and over again. In essence, that’s all of our fates. Rather, he decides that while he can’t alter his circumstances, he can alter his attitude and that transforms everything.

 

Ultimately, this is how conflicts get resolved, relationships heal and we become happy. If our circumstances never change but our point of view about those circumstances changes, then life alters.

Paradoxically, altering our point of view requires that we see what has always been there. We will see what has always been there if we give up our commitment to being right about our opinions, judgments and assessments. We might, for example, see that our opinion of those family members we are dreading to see during the holidays bear no relationship to the reality of who they really are.

As Rabbi Alan Lew writes in his book, “One God Clapping,” “We don’t realize how much our subjectivity is involved in shaping reality. When we do become aware of this, the world seems remarkably malleable.”