Friday, February 02, 2007

Same Stuff, Different Day

Every year on this day, I make a kind of pilgrimage to Punxatawny, Pennsylvania as I curl up on the couch to watch Groundhog Day, a brilliant moral fable featuring Bill Murray as a jaded weatherman who has to relive the same day over and over. (I counted 34 times, but I'm sure the implied number has to be in the thousands.) Bill's character finally breaks free from his eternal cycle when he slowly realizes that what makes life worth living is not what you get from it, but what you put into it.

How many lives are wasted because of self-indulgence and ego-centric choice? Almost every successful leader I've ever met or interviewed has told me that they didn't achieve true wealth until they started focusing outward and made a conscious effort to give more than they got.


Don't let another day go by doing the same ol' same old. Break free from the commonplace. Find ways to make each day better, to add something instead of grabbing away. The lesson from Groundhog Day is that loving life includes loving the fact that it moves on--whether you do or not.

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