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Lessons from La La Land

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  • February 27, 2017 at 3:01 pm #130729
    Kevin Mahoney
    Participant

    “People love what other people are passionate about.” -Mia
    “I’m letting life hit me until it gets tired. Then I’ll hit back. It’s a classic rope-a-dope.” -Sebastian

    I had the opportunity to go to the movies this past week with my wife and daughter. Since it was a day to get some time together without her younger sibling, my daughter was the one who chose the movie. It was not a big surprise when she settled on La La Land. While I was not overly excited to watch this particular film, I did not have any strong negative feelings, either. I was pleasantly surprised when I ended up enjoying the movie immensely. In fact, it is one of the best films I have seen in the past few years. What I enjoyed the most from the movie was the exploration of some important real-world issues concerning life and the power of our decisions.
    I thought the film did a great job highlighting the battle we can face between finding a transactional work environment that may work best for our personal lives, and finding a transformational work environment that may help us reach our professional goals but at a potential personal cost. Both Emma Stone’s (Mia) and Ryan Gosling’s (Sebastian) characters chose the transformational career path and achieved their dreams. However, their personal lives suffered as a result. By the end of the movie, I felt that Mia and Sebastian had made the right decisions for themselves. I was impressed by their dedication to their professions but at the same time I felt that they lost out on an interpersonal level.
    As a public-sector employee, there is a significant transactional nature to my work. In the past, I have longed to work in a transformational environment. While I still would welcome the opportunity to work in this type of environment, I have learned to see that work will not be the major source of my personal growth and development. I am not alone. I believe that many people will find most of their personal fulfilment and growth outside of their regular 9 to 5 job.
    Are you satisfied with the level of personal growth provided by your current work environment? Are you comfortable taking full responsibility for your personal growth?

    February 27, 2017 at 7:13 pm #131173
    Peter
    Participant

    I also thought the movie had a lot to say about the reality of relationship and the role that love plays.

    I found that as an observer to what on the surface was an old-time Hollywood musical, that I wanted the Hollywood la la land ending. I wanted Mia and Sebastian to have it all. I wanted their experience of love not only to inspire and push them in their becoming but to also mean they could be happy ever after, together. But that was not to be. And as you mentioned would have been a mistake for Mia and Sebastian. Timing as the movie so cleverly revealed is everything.

    Love it seems, on its highest plane, seems to demand that we become and that relationships are often the crucible in which this is realized. (Even at time the cost of the relationship we might have imagined and hoped/worked for)

    After a breakup, I found myself asking the Question “what’s Love got to do with it”? (It being a committed life long relationship). My answer surprised me. Everything and Nothing. Without love relationship is not possible yet even where there is love (even when soul mates) it does not mean that a objective relationship is possible. There are times that we come into each other lives to push each other forward and sometimes fatefully it is the pain of the breakup that is required to wake us up and put us back on our path.

    It was recently suggested to me that we are our own soul mates. That in the finding and becoming our authentic self we discover our soul. On the surface as we watch Mia and Sebastian we might have said they were soul mates and in a way they were, but not perhaps as we imagine. Together in that time and space, call it fate, destiny, or perhaps a window of opportunity that was noticed, through the eyes of the other they saw their own souls and became.

    I saw the movies La La Land and Collateral Beauty in the same week and to my way of thinking they tell the same story of Love – Love bitter sweet.

    February 28, 2017 at 11:53 am #131745
    Kevin Mahoney
    Participant

    I liked your point “It was recently suggested to me that we are our own soul mates. That in the finding and becoming our authentic self we discover our soul.” I do think that we need to be aware of, and comfortable with, who we are to be happy with or without another person.

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