;)
There is a scene in the action crime drama “Set It Off” where a janitorial worker named Stoney asks her best friend Cleo “What does our future look like? Where do you see yourself five years from now?” – to which Cleo responds “I don’t know and I don’t care...
I ain’t thinking about five years from now. I’m just trying to get through today.”
We all may not share Cleo’s grim look on the future but I bet you can relate to her feelings of just trying to get by and make it through today. That feeling is especially pressing when you are faced with some type of overwhelming matter, fear, struggle or overall sense of darkness. Be that as it may, there are a lot of things that can be done to get through those tough times of uncertainty, turmoil or despair.
I’m not here to solve all pf your problems because I don’t have the answers – trust me – if I did, then I’d solve my own first. Plus, my idea of a good time when getting through hard moments or stressful days is a wild playlist of songs that are all over the board, a great movie and a glass of wine or whatever tolerable cocktail is on the shelf. They are tried and true calming mechanisms that when combined, make for a pretty sweet condition that is about as zen-like as I’m going to get on many-a-day.
Still, I would like to present some options to calm the chaos in your world during times when normal attempts at relaxation are no longer working for you. Here are some Zen-like practices that men and women, who have presented Oscars for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences at one time or another, used in their film roles to get through their days.
Maybe you could try them out when you're dying of boredom or are undergoing so much stress that one more thing will make you either scream or punch someone in the face.
- Create an alter ego and start talking to yourself, like James Franco does in the biography adventure-drama “127 Hours,” about a trapped mountain climber.
- Watch the sunrise while getting high on a rooftop and fantasizing about what it would be like to have better employment, the way Queen Latifah and her friends do in “Set It Off,” about a group of female bank robbers.
- Sing along to “Roxanne” by The Police as it plays on a Walkman while you sit in a jail cell, like Eddie Murphy does in the action-comedy “48 Hours,” about a cop and his criminal partner who search for an escaped convict.
Now, I'm off to have a small glass of wine, accompanied by a few slices of the most delicious pizza that Philadelphia has to offer. After 26 days straight of blogging, reading, commenting and dealing with the post-production and next steps of my short film, I'd like to think I've earned it!
What Zen-like practices from the movies would YOU add to this list?
This post marks yet another completion of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. It’s been a wild ride! My Reflections on this 2013 April challenge will be posted in the coming days.