UP
So I went and saw the movie Up with a few friends last week. If you have not seen it yet, please please STOP reading here and come back after you have seen it. So if you haven't stopped reading by now you probably have seen the movie; it's not like what I'm writing will ruin the movie, at least I don't think so, well maybe one of them, but I'd like to present a few moments from the movie that were thought provoking and it's better to have seen the movie first. *edit: ok so after writing below I've come to the conclusion that what I'm writing may ruin the movie so if you haven't seen it yet and are still reading, PLEASE STOP NOW!!
So here goes nothing; the first thought provoking portion of the movie: after Carl meets Ellie, the movie goes into a fast forward kind of mode and you see them getting married and living their lives and growing old together. They have this dream of some day having this grand adventure and going to Paradise Falls but as you notice, the years go by and something always comes up that prevents them from realizing their dream. Eventually, Ellie passes away and Carl is all by himself, *sniff, anyways as I watched this unfold the thought that came to me was just that at the end of my life, I don't want to end up like Carl at that point in the movie. What I mean is that I don't want to look back on my life and realize that I haven't lived a grand adventure. I mean I have my dreams and things I want to achieve and hopefully you do too but life can get hectic and especially here in North America it's easy to just go with the flow of the rat race and live the "American Dream". But for me, I hope that I don't get trapped in that; it's kinda easy now because I'm still working on starting to build my career and I don't have a girlfriend so "settling down" isn't even close to being on my radar, although my parents are trying to subtly hint that it's about time I found a girlfriend. It's not really a big deal, I'm just going to keep doing my thing and I'll take whatever God throws at me, and if he decides to throw a girl into the adventure that is my life so be it. Well, back to my discussion of the movie, this next thought was one that my roommate brought up when we were discussing the movie afterwards but it was going through my head as well; so Carl eventually makes it to Paradise Falls and he takes out Ellie's Adventure Book and puts a page into it as if checking off an item in a To-do list. This is another *sniff moment but also a Yay! moment. As his hand brushes the "Things I'm going to do" page, it lifts and he notices that Ellie has put something there that he didn't know was there. He flips through the pages and sees that Ellie had put pictures of things they've done together and at the end she wrote "Thanks for the adventure, now go have one of your own!" The sad part was that Carl was so focused on Paradise Falls as the destination and beginning of an adventure that he kind of missed the journey and adventure of life with Ellie. So taking into account what I wrote earlier, it is also my hope that I don't get so focused on my goals and dreams that I miss the journey along the way. Similarly, we can also easily miss the little blessings and miracles that God gives us each day. So those are just a few thoughts I had after watching Up; time to continue living the adventure of life ;)