Unless you missed the news entirely this weekend you know about the enormous storm that blew across the southern half of the United States and finally up the Eastern seaboard. For areas like my home in Tennessee it was a “once a decade” happening. We ended up with 6-10 inches of snow capped with a solid sheet of ice. The Governor called a state of emergency by 12:00 on Friday afternoon and everyone was basically stuck indoors until Sunday afternoon when the ice started to recede. For some folks this induces a state of panic but Betsy and I chose to look at it as an opportunity. We took several looooong walks with the pups, caught up with neighbors we hadn’t seen in quite a while and implemented a “state of emergency movie marathon.” It was awesome!
For quite some time Betsy has been telling me that I just have to watch “Gone With The Wind” especially now that I’m an official southerner (Michigan transplant). Since it’s four hours long and not exactly a movie you can watch on a whim, this weekend was the perfect opportunity. If you’ve never seen it before I highly recommend you put it on your entertainment to-do list. It’s not only a literary classic but it’s also considered historically accurate by scholars for my fellow history buffs.
The twitter version of the plot is that the story follows the life of Scarlett O’Hara, a southern bell from Georgia, throughout the Civil War and the changes that ensue as a result of the choices she makes. Scarlett’s whole life is wrapped up in chasing what she can’t have. I think it incredibly ironic that the title is “Gone With the Wind” when the plot so closely resembles the words of King Solomon when he says the vanities of life are like “chasing after the wind”. This is the sum of the movie; Scarlett’s life is marked by chasing after the wind.
So my question is this, if someone were to make a movie about our lives what would be the overarching theme or plot? When the credits role what would people walk away with, what would they say we spent most of our time chasing? Relationships, money, the approval of others, power, security? What steps can I take to make sure the message I want to communicate with my life is actually the message others are hearing by my actions?
