Turning points and who you want to be!

Have you seen the film “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”? It’s a Ben Stiller movie (stars and directs) about a guy with a pretty mundane job who makes a few very small decisions that change his life. However his life doesn’t change at the surface level but rather in his view of “who” he is and how he lives his life. I won’t bore you all with the details as I’ll probably butcher what is actually a pretty darn good feel good movie (so go watch it) however the significant moment, the truly stand out part of the film is a small section in the middle. Basically Walter, who manages photos for Life magazine,  is trying to find the photographer who took a picture for the final edition of the magazine which has become lost.

So Walter really needs to track down the negative (which in this digital age is quite a strange thing which I’ll talk about later), and has travelled to a small town in Greenland. He arrives completely unprepared, his flight a completely spur of the moment decision (he has no luggage and is still clutching the briefcase he takes to work everyday) and is told that the photographer is on a fishing vessel offshore, they have a broken radio and a very drunk helicopter pilot is flying parts out to them shortly and would Walter like a lift.

At first Walter is scared, declines and stands about wondering what to do but as the helicopter starts up and then begins to lift off from the ground he runs over and jumps on board. This is the bit I call “The Choice”, it’s the point at which he makes a decision. Up until now he has been operating in a way that is normal and safe, surrounded by simple structures and routines (go to work, have lunch, buy a plane ticket, rent a car). All of these actions represented very little risk to his predictable and safe life. Then his goal (find the photographer) is moved way beyond his grasp, at least by the definitions, the securities that he has been living his life by and he makes a choice – be safe and routine or change who he is, get on the helicopter and see what happens.

So that’s the first step, in the movie you can see the shock Walter experiences as he does something he couldn’t have foreseen himself doing mere seconds ago. He’s now operating beyond his experience level, he’s learning and adapting as he goes and as a consequence (and beyond his ability to control) he’s changing.

The helicopter flies out to the fishing vessel which has launched a small boat to collect the radio parts that the pilot is supposed to drop from the helicopter into it. Due to the helicopter having open doors in heavy seas Walter mis-hears the pilot when he tells him to jump into the boat (the pilot means the small motorboat zipping about on the left) and he tries to jump into the much larger and further away trawler on the right (and obviously falls straight into the sea). What follows is a rather silly shark fight in which Walter’s very symbolic briefcase (which he is still clutching) is chewed on by the grumpy marine predator.

This part I’m going to call “The change”. He is now different, he’s making new choices and adapting quickly to his new role. However we have a bit of a crisis at this point because this is where we find out if Walter has the tools in his mental toolkit to successfully adapt and grow or will he begin to collapse as his world changes beyond his mental ability to control.

Well, not to give too much away but the photographer isn’t on board, he’s now in Iceland and the Trawler is going there (that’s fortuitous) so Walter now has a new objective. As part of the ongoing symbolism, the trappings of his mundane life are now destroyed (his shirt, tie, trousers and briefcase) and the crew loan him some clothes and a scruffy canvas bag.

So on to Iceland where Walter no learns that the aforementioned Photographer is over at the next town. Luckily he traded with a local boy for a long board and skates down a very long and windy mountain road to get to his destination. I’m going to call this bit “The acceptance”. 

Walter is now someone else, he’s not accepted a set routine or the immutability of life but rather that life continues to change and challenge us and we have to adapt and learn constantly so that we can grow. And in growing and learning and challenging what we know we gain some value and enjoyment from living and can gain a sense of fulfillment that owning things will never provide.

I won’t tell you what happens as it’s a nice film and you should go watch it. But the message I am trying to impart is that often we talk about change but never actually choose to change. All it takes is making a choice, to yourself. To choose to start the journey, you may not get very far however just by starting you will learning something new and that means that you will become something other than what you were. If you are open and adaptable you will go places you never dreamed you would.

My own personal “choice” moment was back in 2006 when my wife and I chose to quit our jobs, sell our home and head round the world on a 13 month trip. We effectively became homeless for over a year, abandoning perfectly good jobs, selling a nice home and just heading out into the world. Our choosing moment back in 2006 literally went like this:

Me “I’ve had a bad day at work”

Sarah “me too, lets sell up and go travelling”

Me “Ok”

To us it was that simple, in our heads we had made the choice and in doing so we began to change. We set off in 2006 not knowing what would happen and where we would go however because we had made the choice we had let ourselves be open to the idea of change, we were ready to adapt and learn. We spent 13 months travelling the globe, we came back to the UK scruffier but more focused, knowing we wanted children but also knowing that we didn’t want to raise them there. Nor did we want to continue in the careers we had been in. I studied for a new degree, we had 2 kids, Sarah retrained and then 7 years later we moved to New Zealand and started up new lives, I now work in the Primary Sector and Sarah runs a home baking business.

But the weird thing is I don’t feel like the person I was before that choice moment. I’m definitely different and I’m quite enjoying who I am and looking forward to who I’m eventually going to be. The one thing I have learnt is that we change all the time and it is up to us whether that change is positive or not.