One of the things I appreciated a lot about my childhood, were the movies my parents would watch with us. Aside from being extremely selective about what we’d watch (I saw my first R-movie when I was 14 – Gladiator) they hand-picked some of the all-time great films of our generation – most of them weren’t in Technicolor.
I grew up on the greats, like Lawrence of Arabia, Ben Hur, The King and I and His Girl Friday, to name a few. Of all the films we watched, one stands above all the rest: It’s a Wonderful Life.
In the film, we watch as one character, George Bailey, navigates life through the lens of a small town. George was a small-town boy with big-city dreams and ambition, and he longed to make it out of Bedford Falls, his hometown.
George wanted to see the world, build skyscrapers and ride the bull of life for every buck and twist it could throw his way – and he was determined to ride it across the finish line. Yet, none of those big-city dreams ever seemed to materialize for him, and he crossed into adulthood with a sense of longing for what he didn’t have.
I think that George wanted to have a rich life, full of fast-paced activities, air travel and exotic destinations. Instead, he found his roots further deepening in Bedford Falls due to his family circumstances and business.
The film is about life, and the richness that it holds when you stop to look at the richness of what it is that you have around you, the people you love and who love you, and the priceless gift that children and family are to those who are blessed enough to have them.
I’ve spent a good portion of my life feeling like George Bailey, with an eye for bigger and ‘better’ things than what life has given me. At times, I’ve even done my best to try and make it out of my proverbial Bedford Falls, only to find myself back not too far from where I first began.
One of the most gut-wrenching scenes in the film is the moment when George discovers his business has an $8,000 deficit due to a forgetful mistake, and everything he worked so hard to achieve is on the brink of collapse.
It’s in that moment that all of the holiday festivities, cheer and even family members around him begin to haunt him – seeming to taunt him because of the missing money. It nearly leads him to take his life, only to come back home and find it again.
Today, I felt a lot like George. A 5 minute phone call was all it took for me to discover that I wasn’t going to receive a larger sum of money than what George was missing – $9,000 – and it absolutely pulled the floor out from under me when I got the news that my client had to suspend a contract due to their own internal issues within their business.
It felt like a kick to my stomach when I realized that my holiday plans would be different than what I had hoped for, or that a vacation with my family wasn’t on the books this January, or that I’d have to convey this news to my team.
Yet, something didn’t happen, that surprised me.
I didn’t feel any stress or worry. Rather, I realized how much I wanted to spend time with Atlas, and a few minutes later, I got another phone call that gave me the opportunity to do so.
I’ve been blogging recently about values and the importance of family. And today, I felt as if I had an opportunity to put those values to the test. See, getting your priorities right doesn’t mean that things will always go your way. Rather, when they don’t – and sometimes they won’t – you discover that you have a firm foundation to stand on.
When I picked up Atlas, I didn’t feel like a failure. Rather, I felt richer than I ever had, and still do.
This week, I practiced boxing with Atlas. He has his boxing gloves, and I wear mine. I teach him to hold up his hands, cover his face and punch properly instead of making big, wide swings that open his belly up to the soft taps I give him when he does.
I’ll let Atlas try to hit my face or land a body shot, and when he does, I playfully fall to the ground as he starts a countdown.
“What do we do when we fall, Atlas? We GET BACK UP!”
My parents did an amazing job of bundling core life values with different things they taught us. When I teach Atlas to get back him, I hope that one day he understands these lessons aren’t about boxing; they’re about the determination, effort and drive that it takes to stand to your feet when life knocks you down, so that one day he can raise his arms in the air as a champion.
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