The Help: Go Find Your Life

I had the opportunity to attend an advance screening of The Help last week, and as a huge fan of the book, I was concerned that the movie wouldn't live up to my expectations. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the movie could stand alone as a story beautifully told, while retaining the flavour and spirit of the novel.

One of my favourite lines in the movie came near the end, when the main character Skeeter (played by Easy A's brilliant Emma Stone) is told to "go find her life." This advice rang true for me on a variety of levels, as this is what I have been doing for the last two years.

There are so many ways that we can hold ourselves back from pursuing our dreams. We secretly believe that we don't deserve to be happy, or we fear the attacks which are sure to come from others when we find success in any area. Working through these faulty beliefs and replacing them with new and positive images of ourselves is a step in the right direction.

As I age, I realize how limited our time really is. When you are in your twenties, you think you have the rest of your life to pursue your dreams, and in fact you do, but then you blink and you are in your late thirties and time seems more precious than ever before. I don't want to waste any more time idling in neutral. I want to be moving forward, going somewhere, pursuing the life I've always dreamed of living.

Go find your life. Four simple words, freeing when you are on this path, but so limiting when you are not. If there are obstacles in your way, identify them and work through them, one by one, so you can leave them by the side of the road and walk away. Putting down my backpack full of rocks has helped me to move forward, but first I had to face what was actually weighing me down, and walk through the process of changing what I believed to be true about myself.

For the most part, we hold ourselves back from pursuing our own dreams. I was prisoner for way too long to what other people thought of me. Now I've felt the pain of letting others down and going my own way, and I've survived it, and I've never been closer to finding my own life. The courage is inside all of us, provided we can access it and own it.