Did you watch It’s a Wonderful Life this past weekend? Usually, I just tune in and out of it since I’m familiar with the story line, but for some reason this year my intuition compelled me to watch it from start to finish. Apparently, I needed a reminder of the lessons this classic teaches.
Lesson One
While it’s important to have goals and strive to achieve them, their attainment doesn’t determine if we live a wonderful life. When we achieve a goal, it certainly creates satisfaction, but our wonderful life usually happens in the journey towards attaining ours goal. It comes from the inspiration, hope, and motivation that leads to our actions to attain a goal. But living a wonderful life can happen regardless of achieving a goal or not.
Lesson Two
Life rarely turns out as we plan or expect. Some things will be better than we could ever have dreamed and others will be more challenging than we could ever anticipate. While it’s important to know where we want to go and to try to get there, it’s equally important to be honorable, balanced, and helpful. The majority of us make sacrifices for the people we love from our families to our friends. While these sacrifices can detour us from pursuing a dream, they may also be the unexpected catalyst that allows us to live a wonderful life.
Lesson Three
Living a wonderful life is really about how we perceive the events that make up our life. We can cling to the happiness we planned to find on an untraveled road or we can embrace the happiness we actually experience on the road we travel. Happiness happens when we recognize our planned and unplanned blessings and can be thankful for them.
No one lives a made for the movies life that wraps everything up in a perfect package in mere minutes. Our lives are full of the unexpected and unplanned that ranges from unwanted chaos to unexpected happiness, and we have to remember that both the chaos and happiness contribute to living our own version of It’s a Wonderful Life.
What’s your favorite part of It’s a Wonderful Life?
Written by Pamela Gail
Pamela Gail Johnson founded the Society of Happy People in 1998. A few of the things that make her smile are the monthly book club she hosts, trying new wines with friends, yoga, and cooking for friends and her dog Tater--who always makes her happy.
She's the Chief Happiness Officer for Happier @ Work, speaker, trainer, author of the Secret Society of Happy Peoples Thirty-One Types of Happiness Guide, and writes the Society Column. The Society of Happy People celebrates happiness including hosting the annual Happiness Happens Month and Hunt for Happiness Week. Pamela was named a semi-finalist in the search for the next Global Thought Leader in 2013.
absolutely love “It’s a wonderful life”! watch it every year, cry, introspect,… thank you for reminding me that even a Clarence can create miracles!!!
I like the part when Jimmy Stewart, just rescued by Clarence the Angel and told he had never been born, suddenly realizes he can again hear out of his deaf ear.
This story is right on target…..I know I can look at other peoples lives and they seem so much better than mine….but are they really?? We all need to be thankful for what we have and not worry about trying to be like anyone else.
My favorite part is when George allows his brother to go to college instead of going himself…..what a selfless act of love!
Love this statement “While it’s important to know where we want to go and to try to get there, it’s equally important to be honorable, balanced, and helpful.” This is so incredibly true!!
I love this movie! Last Christmas I was stunned to discover my 7 year old daughter loved it as well – I thought she’d be too young, but she actually took it to school on a day they were talking about favorite movies in class. There are such rich messages in this classic, and given that each year I watch it, I’m in a different place, it’s one that I love rediscovering each year.
Thank you for the great reminders! My life is like nothing I had planned, but I love and appreciate every moment of it now as if I planned it piece by piece.
About three years ago my “whole life unraveled” Thank goodness, it allowed room for the amazing life I’d been thinking about to create itself in a much nicer way than I would have without the interruption!
Life is full of speed bumps (as my husband calls them). I enjoyed your article it brought a few smiles along the way. Life has ups and downs. Take the good and bad, mix them up and find the happiness inside.
I love your site and blog! Look forward to visiting more often.
I love that movie! There are so many wonderful parts…it’s hard to pick a favorite!! But if I had to, it would be the part when he realizes just how important he always was…great post!
One of my favorite movies! I watch it every Christmas eve. You’ve brought up some really good points in this post. Tip #3 is great. It’s hard to be mindful of that especially during what seems like difficult times, but it’s really is about perspective. Thanks for this post!
Great post! Perception is so important! I so enjoy your posts. Thank you
Love that movie – love your post — and especially love this statement: “Happiness happens when we recognize our planned and unplanned blessings and can be thankful for them.
Important and helpful information…life truly is how we perceive it. Thanks!
Lesson number 3 is a great one to keep in mind! Sometimes the best happiness is found were you least expect it!
I also am a huge fan of this movie; we watch it every year and usually find another detail in the movie that we hadn’t seen the year before. I love the scene when that bell rings in the tree and the whole family realizes the miracle that just experienced….thanks!
This movie inspires me each time I see it. Thanks for the reminder of what this classic teaches. I love the part where they are dancing home and he throws rocks at the home he would someday reside in. Let us all realize love comes and lives in many forms.
I LOVE this movie and ADORE your parallel here – there are so many different levels to this movie, little nuances and remarkable thoughts on life and all its rough and amazing glory!
I love this statement: Living a wonderful life is really about how we perceive the events that make up our life…I’ve faced many uncomfortable and unfamiliar events in the last few years so this has been a real challenge for me…right now the struggle is around Christmas…taking this to heart!
I love this movie. I saw it by fluke many years ago, was not interested really but was compelled to finish it. It was what I needed at that time and remains a fav of mine!
I haven’t sat down and watched the whole movie in years. Thanks for the great lessons. I might just have to watch it again now.
I love the movie and your thoughts Pam! I like it when you stated that our lives are full of the unexpected and unplanned that ranges from unwanted chaos to unexpected happiness. So true! Oftentimes, it’s helpful to appreciate where we’re at and what we have.