How Do You Know

Wednesday night ended up being a lovely night at home watching movies with my roommates while eating waaaay too much food because I'm sick of cooking for just myself so I have compromised with making a lovely meal for two and eating it all by my lonesome. 

One of the movie choices of the night was How Do You Know.

I've already gone over my thoughts on how you know you love someone so here's what I found interesting instead:

I loved the theme of being someone. Figuring out who you are and who you want to be and then making those adjustments.

This quote is when Lisa talks to a shrink-

Lisa: "So I was just wondering if there was one general thing that you've found over the years to be generally true in a general way that would help anyone in any situation? 

Shrink: "That's a great question, yes, I would say figure out what you want and learn how to ask for it."

Isn't that truly one of the most difficult quests we travel on in our lives? Beneath all the superficial temporary packaging material, what do we really want? And once we figure that out, how do we go about earning it?

We love putting off those questions. It's so much easier to fill our time with packaging material activities (like spending an evening gorging ourselves on movies and food). 

Personally, I love keeping myself so busy that I only have time to feel like I'm constantly accomplishing rather than totally lost in a long-term vision of my life.

"I don't know that I can do great but I know that I can do better."

We get this idea in our minds that we must be all or nothing. Well, at least I do.

Why is my thesis not done? Oh, because I constantly feel overwhelmed at all I still have to do, yet I would have been done a long time ago if only I had paced myself with one assignment a week. 

The same occurs with our desires to achieve the person we've always wanted to be.

Yes, I want to be this fantastically gorgeous girl who has great grades, is really good at singing & playing the piano, can make you laugh at any moment, never once complains, steps up as a leader, has resolved all her family issues. .  . . . . I can't be all of those things now.

No one can simply change overnight.

Great is achieved through a lot of betters.

We can be better if we split our lives up one better at a time.

"When you're in something, you've gotta give it all you have. Or else what are you doing?"

How often are we lukewarm? Floating somewhere in between because we simply don't care enough to make a solid decision.

Or we're lazy. Which also means we just don't care.

When I find things I care about, I try to be all in. And I fail miserably. I think most people do.

But how wonderful is it to see the results of giving something our all?

Even if what we're working at doesn't work out we will be able to look back without regrets because we have the affirmation that we did our very best and if that wasn't enough, then there's nothing more we can complain about.

"We're all just one small adjustment away from making our lives work."

It seems that far too often we become frustrated and walk away from a task. Ya know-- I just can't figure this problem out in my homework, my relationship with someone I care about just don't have that special something I'm looking for, no matter how much I budget my finances I never come out with extra cash... so screw it!

I hate the term "screw it" but I feel that it properly emphasizes my point.

How often are we SO close? We've put so much work into the things we care about and they're just not working out as we had hoped but we can't see that we are one slight adjustment away from working it out. 

Yes, there's a point when you've simply reached a dead end and need to walk away for at least a little while, but I think more often than we realize, we are almost there but we're so caught up with the irrelevant that we can't see the real problem or solution.

"Never drink to feel better. Only drink to feel even better."

I don't really think this fits into the general thought I took out of the movie, but I love it anyways.

When I heard this quote here's where my thoughts went-

That is genius! I don't drink alcohol so what is my replacement? Ben & Jerry's. When I eat B&J to feel better I just end up still moody with 1000 extra fat calories in my body and $4 less in my bank account. But when I eat B&Js when I'm happy it just makes me even happier.

I don't know if this is enough for me to give up that tradition though. I truly think that is one of the most brilliant lines I have ever heard.

And all those little lines are the reasons I can sit through a dumb chick flick and still love it.