Forest Gump

Spending a bunch of time on the road gives you plenty of time to think. You know, lost in your own mind instead of watching the road and world around you… or something.

Anyway, as I was going between schools recently my mind wandered over to Forest Gump. Yes, I mean the movie but more specifically, the highly improbable way his life rolled out. I feel like we all look at what happened in the character’s life and think to ourselves that it is too fantastic and stuff like that never just happens. Basically, it is a story about the least likely of heroes being in just the right place at just the right time and all manner of things happen within his life. Stuff like that just doesn’t happen in real life.

The crazy thing is, I think stuff like that does happen. But we get so caught up in the bullshit of our lives that we miss it all and never really recognize the oddities of our world falling into place. I don’t say this to discount the individual quests we all place on our lives on our journeys to fulfillment. (yeah, I can hear what I said that and think I am full of shit too. But bear with me. I have some thoughts)

I think the biggest thing Forest does within the framework of the story is he gets out of his own way. When you think about it, the biggest issue we run into in our journey is the self-talk and drama we force upon ourselves. Forest never has problems reaching out because he doesn’t have that internal monologue blocking him from moving ahead with his thoughts. Except when it comes to Jenny but that is something else entirely.

Think of the several times he met the president within the story. It wasn’t something he necessarily set out to do and he never told himself he didn’t merit it. He just got to work doing the things he did and from there everything else fell into place.

See, that’s the problem in a nutshell. We spend so much time wrapped up in our own heads that we never really, just do the thing. It doesn’t even matter what the thing is. We block ourselves from moving beyond where we are because we have all these “reasons” floating around our heads.

Maybe we would be better off if we just did the one thing. Run Forest run, could very well be the best advice we have to live our lives.

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