There Is More to Life Than Your Highlight Reel

As a kid I loved to read science fiction. Many of those stories provided important and lasting lessons, some of which have stuck with me for more than sixty years.

In one story the hero wished to live his life as a movie highlight reel without the boring interludes.  His wish was granted but, sure enough, while his life moved from highlight to highlight he missed everything else.

He got the girl, but in those days movies were heavily censored, so when the bedroom door closed there was a quick cut to the next highlight.  The rest of his entire life was G rated and ran for only ninety minutes.

My wife and I, together with one of our daughters and two of our adult grandchildren, enjoyed a quiet New Year’s Eve dinner at home, sharing our favorite memories of the past year.  Mine was January 12, 2019, when Daveen and I moved back in together. (I got immediate credit for being romantic.)

The next three evenings of the New Year the five of us watched three of my favorite movies, which were:

Bucket List with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, My Cousin Vinnie with Danny DeVito and Marisa Tomei, and The Last Samurai with Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe.  We enjoyed three warm and wonderful family evenings in a row.

I have seen each film many times, but as we savored them again I was surprised by a number of important scenes I hadn’t remembered.  Yet each of those scenes brought additional emotional resonance to the movie.

I tend to live my life fast – one and done.  Get it over and move on.  But here at the beginning of a new decade I enjoyed not only the highlights, but also the depth of every moment spent with my loved ones.

Daveen and I took a walk around the neighborhood each day.  I was surprised and delighted to walk past the same trees and houses, each time absorbing more details.

The highlights of our lives are brief.  Depth takes time and repetition.

Highlights are memorable, but most of our lives are spent with mundane activities such as watching a movie, or preparing a meal.  The journey takes far longer than the moment of leaving or the moment of arrival,

In 2020 let’s all slow down a bit and relish each moment.  As Simon and Garfunkel put it:

“Slow down, you move too fast, gotta make the morning last . . .”

It’s not the births, marriages, and deaths that fill our lives.  It’s everything we enjoy in between those annual New Year’s Eves and birthdays that counts.

Happy New Moment.

Alan