What if there is no tomorrow? There wasn’t one today!
It was during my yearly celebration of one of the greatest comedies ever, Groundhog Day, that I found an article about how much Buddhist’s love the movie and see their philosophy underpinning the story. According to Harold Ramis, a lot of religious people see their lessons reflected in the film, but the way the article described Buddhism appealed to me.
I’ve always enjoyed the movie’s tale of self-improvement and generosity, but had never given the message much more thought than that. I was always more interested in the puzzle of how long Phil spent trapped in the same day, or what I would do with the same circumstances.
One of Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths, as briefly described in the article, stuck with me: Suffering arises from attachment to desire. It’s only when Phil Connors stops living exclusively for his own gain and helps others that he improves as a person and becomes truly content. It’s certainly not a philosophy that’s exclusive to Buddhism, but the phrasing piqued my interest and I had to learn more.
So I was inspired to pick up a book on Buddhism, and have been reading it for the past week. It’s already helped change my outlook and I feel better than I have in a long time.
There must be odder prophets than Bill Murray, but I’ve yet to hear of one.
