Would you live today over again?
A simple question that can help define a good life
I live in Pennsylvania, which is the home of a famous groundhog known as Punxsutawney Phil. Each year, on February 2nd, a huge crowd gathers to see if Phil will see his shadow or not. This augurs whether there will be 6 more weeks of winter, or something like that. Groundhog Day is not the world’s most sophisticated holiday.
But a few decades ago, it became the title of a movie based on a fascinating premise. Phil Connors, who is not the world’s most pleasant person, is a TV personality who visits the Groundhog Day festivities, and gets stuck living Groundhog Day over and over again.
At first he is defiant about the whole time warp. But eventually he decides that if this is the day he has, he is going to live it right.
This premise gets at an old existential question: how would we live if we were sentenced to live any given period of time over and over again?
I imagine we have different answers. But there are probably certain things we’d do. We wouldn’t fly off the handle about silly things. We wouldn’t make choices that we knew would make us feel bad. We would spend time with people who energize us and make us feel good about life. We would spend less time with people who don’t meet that criteria. And I’d like to think we’d spend less time on things that are all about filling time. Scrolling through online insults feels pretty pointless the first time around. Multiplying that by eternity is mind-blowing.
Of course, we are not actually going to live today over and over again. But I think this is a good question to ask as we’re looking back over the day, and as we think about how we’d like to spend our time in general. What aspects of a day would we not mind reliving? And what do we really wish to consign to the past?
Asking this question can help us think through what the good life would look like. A day I’d live over and over again probably wouldn’t involve waiting for a groundhog to pop up. But I would like to savor a good cup of coffee, run somewhere beautiful, and snuggle with my kids. I don’t think those things would get old. So how about you?
Though it's not the topic at hand, I once heard an interview with the screenwriter of that movie. He said he chose Ground Hog Day because he hoped his movie would get replayed every year, and there was no competition for Ground Hog Day. And then, ironically, it became such a hit that it got remade into a stage play, so *he* was the one living on constant repeat with his most successful project ever. He wasn't ungrateful, but he saw the humor in it.