Lessons here and there from the secret life of Walter Mitty.

I wasn’t one who would watch a movie more than once except for a veerryy few movies that really makes my mind think and leave such a great impression in my heart (Read: Inception, The Legend, Courageous..) And since yesterday was my ‘Monday-movie-hooray-day’ (what a great way to start the week,right?) I had a wonderful surprise of getting to add to my short list of ‘must-watch-again-movies’  with this amazing production of, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” with Ben Stiller as the director and acting as Mitty himself. What I loved with this movie were the many life lessons portrayed in such a beautiful and almost poetic kind of way. The cinematography and over-all concept was also a wonderful treat for someone who loves travel and photography like me. So allow me to break down some of the lessons I picked from the film.

1. The Purpose of Life.

Seven or eight years ago, this was my greatest question: “Why am I here?” and “Is this life all there it is?” I would constantly turn this over my head and this is how the movie pictured it out…

If you try to understand the philosophy of this quote, it’s about going out of your comfort zone and exploring the world around you and to actually find yourself in doing things in the context of the wonderful gift of relationship God has given us.

I find myself relating to Walter Mitty in so many ways. One is in his frequent “zoning-out”, or as I prefer to call “daydreaming.” There are those many times when I would realize I haven’t been catching up to reality anymore because I was too stuck with things I imagine that might or could have happened in my life. Do you guys find yourself doing this too? I guess all of us have daydreamed more than we can admit and failed to act on these dreams and sadly ended up with just sighing for the “what ifs” and “could be’s” in our lives.

But just like Walter, you see it’s never too late to actually live out our lives and make our dreams our reality. I’m reminded of when Jesus spoke about why He have come for us–that we may ‘have life to the full.’ Our only chance of a full life is Jesus and I thank God that He came and made the way so we can have a life worth living. More than the adventures, fun and exhilaration this world can bring, life lived out for Jesus is truly the best and most meaningful life we could ever have!

2. Real beauty.

It was an almost gripping scene when Walter finally found his friend Sean in the mountains of Himalayas. Sean being a photographer was camping in this slope trying to capture a “snow leopard” and he was explaining to Walter that this cat was so hard to spot, so Walter asked why was that and Sean answered this…

BOOM! Talk about pick-up line right? The truth with what Sean said rang so loud in my head. It’s quite sad that today, the rule we live by when it comes to beauty is “when you have it, flaunt it.” The more attraction you get, it means the more beautiful you are, and so you must do all things to get attention…how tiring is that. I know because I do that too, if I were to be honest with myself.

When we turn to what the Bible says about true beauty, it also says the same thing…

“Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. ⁴ Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.” – 1 Peter 3:4-4

It is not about not putting in the effort to be beautiful, but it’s about what defines your real beauty. Is it about the things we do to make us beautiful or is it our character, our hearts which is far more important than anything?

 3. Capturing memories.

In the same scene above, the snow leopard finally came into the open and Sean had his chance of taking such a beautiful picture of it but he didn’t. Why? He put his answer this way…

Another boom moment. We live in a world where in when an event or a very simple moment is not captured in your camera and posted in one of your social media accounts, it’s as if it didn’t happen at all. We live our life “with camera on our hands.” This could be a very great thing. I am a great believer that cherishing memories when we are one day old and grey goes to another level of reverie when we have photographs to look at. But sometimes, as Sean said, there are those times when a camera becomes more of a distraction to a personal moment you should be cherishing with your naked eyes and burning deep down in your memories.

So there is my five-cents worth of lessons I got from this amazing movie. Go ahead and watch it for yourself. Let me know what’s your thoughts about the movie too, okay?

And oh, one of my favorite comedienne, Kristen Wiig was also on it too! Found this cool gif of one of her scenes. :)

Go out there and explore the world, champ!