The movie Groundhog Day is a great representative of the lives we live. I show it to young people when I teach them the value of laughter. But it is so much more. Here is Phil, a man with goals.  He wants to move up to a better job. He has an immediate goal of getting out of town. He tries and fails because he does not do what he needs to do to attain those goals.

He does things.  To the point of driving off a cliff to kill himself. Unfortuately for us, we do not have movie magic to gives us another chance like that. But he keeps doing what he has always done and he does not get anywhere.

Eventually he switches to a different goal. He wants to have a romantic relationship with Rita, his producer.  He does not try to change and he fails. He does change tactics, but he still fails.

He uses the other people in the town to get that goal. He fails time after time. Now eventually he tries to act better and yet he still fails.

It is not until he stops worrying about the outcome that things change.  He lives each day over and over again (Who hasn’t felt that). This time he tries to only focus on each day.  He lives in the moment of getting to know people. He lives in the moment of helping those people. He spends each day trying to improve himself- gaining knowledge and skills.

Instead of goals (though we need goals), he focuses on what he needs to do each day to better himself. He stops doing those things that get in his way and slowly increases those thing that bring him satisfaction. We also see that each day he had to try again and push a little further. His small steps eventually led to success. But he was not miserable until he reached the goal.