When I was younger I used to say that love was the meaning of
life. To have love, to be loved was why we are here. Nowadays as a wiser(ish) and more mature(ish) gal, I live by a slightly different
mantra: growth is the meaning of life. To know more, to do more and ultimately to be more is the reason we are all here. In other words, experiencing mental
and emotional growth is the most important thing in my current to-do list. I would say
that I really started adapting this mantra in the last two years but I hadn’t
yet fully implemented or rather seen it materialize in my physical actions as
much as I did last week. What did I do that made me say, “Holy shit, I am experiencing
growth.” Well, to be honest, I simply walked out of a movie midway with a half eaten bag of
popcorn. Yes, trivial to you but immensely metaphorical to me. Let me explain.
I’m someone who always prided myself on staying and watching a movie in a theatre till the end; no matter how much I disliked it. I felt I owed
this to the people who made it (one day Michael Bay will send me a personalized thank you note for watching Transformers 2 from start to finish), the awkward kid who served me my
buttered popcorn but above all I felt I owed that to my own self. I always felt that I needed to stay until
something was officially done, until the credits rolled, the house lights
came on and the chatter began because that was the right thing to do. I actually would feel guilty if I ever wanted to leave
before a movie finished because to me it somehow meant that I was becoming the type of person
that I detested. You know, the type that walked out of situations the moment they were no longer having fun or enjoying themselves. I also used to think, “Well maybe the movie will somehow take a
triumphant turn for the better and become one of my all time favourites.”
Needless to say that never happened. Does it ever? Usually a movie I thought
was not memorable or enjoyable in the beginning was not memorable or enjoyable till the end.
To
stay till the very end was my mantra but last week I changed that, I walked out
of a movie because I simply was no longer enjoying what was projected in front of
me. I was no longer stimulated or having fun and if you are no longer
stimulated or having fun, what’s the point? Maybe the type of person I detested all these years (the leave when its no longer fun type) had it right all along and it was I who had it backwards? Not even the extra buttered popcorn
I was gobbling on could take away my boredom. I thought to myself, “There are
so many other things I could be doing right now” and that's when for the first
time in my life I got up (slowly and quietly, no need to make a disturbance for
those that liked watching grown women swoon and get giddy over oiled up male entertainers traveling in a frozen yogurt truck for one last hooray) and left.
Yes, not even Channing Tatum could have changed my mind about staying.
I left Empress Walk that night feeling empowered and with a new approach to experiences and that is, if I am not enjoying my time somewhere, I will take myself out of it.
Weird looks, judgment and a half eaten bag of popcorn be damned. Why? Because I
only have one life and to spend it on activities that I am not enjoying is not
how I wish to live it.
We’ve all stayed and watched movies we didn’t necessarily
like (maybe it was a free movie, maybe you felt you owed it to the person you
were watching it with or maybe you hated knowing that all eyes would be on you
as you tiptoed down the barely lit steps) but to continually repeat the cycle
of being in situations that do not feed you (mind, body and soul); to remain
seated when you want to get up and run out; and to feel as if you should be at
point H when you are at point B is not a life I think any of us deserve to live.
It’s such a comforting thought to know that we have choices, is it not? You can choose who you would like spend your
time with. You can choose whether you would like to see a movie solo or with
a companion and you can choose whether to stay or leave anytime you want,
whenever you want, wherever you are. Anybody who tells you differently is
trying to sell you something.
I left a movie midway last week because I couldn’t spend
another morsel of my healthy, productive and beautiful life not feeling as if I
am exactly where I want to be. Growth is building, rebuilding, transforming and structuring
your life in a way where you can close your eyes and are exactly where you want to be. And my apologies to the folks that actually liked Magic Mike XXL.
