Becoming Your Future

Credit: USDA

I strive to live in the moment. To do this takes self-discipline and purpose. However there are still plenty of times in my life when I mentally retreat into living in the past and other times thinking about my future. There are plenty of times when a leader can stay stuck in a rut and react to situations without a realistic understanding of the environment. For those leaders who become deeply entrenched they may notice that their problems keep repeating. This is painfully true for Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.

Murray plays an aging weatherman who worries only about himself. Instead of taking an interest in his current work he mocks, "Someday someone is going to see me interviewing a groundhog and think I don't have a future." Little does he know, his future is about to become inaccessible until he masters himself in the present moment.

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The film walks us through a progression of the human condition trapped in a rut. Murray's behavior starts with skeptical, plows through suicidal, shifts to practical, and grows toward helpful. At this point he begins inner work, moves on to serving others and finally he is a breathtaking model of inspiration for the community.

Others have estimated his groundhog evolution covers 10 years. The film, watched as entertainment, makes transformational change seem quick and easy. But we all know it is not. Putting the change into a decade long perspective is interesting to me because it amplifies how we are creating our future by the choices we make in the moment.

Living in the moment is sometimes intense. In a moment of exasperation Murray says, "What if there is no tomorrow? There wasn't one today." I think staying in a rut is a literal interpretation of having no future. In my quest towards personal transformation I have asked myself some tough questions. I used to want to know what my future holds, now I work on creating my future in this moment.