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If you look closely there are life lessons in everything, from music, to movies, to life experiences, to the internet. The trick with anything like this is to know what to look for and where to look.  Once you know what to keep your eyes open for, life lessons can appear all the time, all over the place. One of my favourite places to find life lessons is in movies. I’m a big sci-fi fan and thought that I could use one of my favourite sci-fi trilogies to help show how you can find life lessons in anything if you just know where to look.

To me every film no matter what it is about holds a potential wealth of thinking and if you open your eyes and your ears you can usually find them. Some film makers intentionally try to put symbolism and philosophical ideas into their movies in order to get the viewer to think and some would rather just have their audience enjoy their time watching their work, The Matrix is one of those films which is simply stuffed full of great thinking that has been intentionally put there just for you.

Lesson 1: Have self belief.

Don’t think you are, know you are. - Morpheus

How many of us have self belief in our abilities? I’m not talking about arrogance because that is a different thing entirely, what I’m talking about is the faith that you need to have in yourself sometimes to attempt things you have never tried before or those things that you fear. This kind of belief in yourself is built on over time and in that respect is like trust, developed gradually not suddenly.

In this scene in The Matrix, Morpheus is trying to get Neo to stop thinking about how good he should be and start to be as good as he thinks he is. We can all be guilty of this at times, we start to be consumed with thinking about how good we are or how good we want to be and never actually live up to that expectation because we’re consumed with thought rather than action. Thinking you are something or someone is what most people spend their lives doing. Knowing that you are something or someone is something many of us seldom do. Stop dreaming the dream and start living it.

There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path. - Morpheus

TheNewHorizonsProject.co.uk on Self Belief: “I Can” The Can do Attitude

Lesson 2: Life is Impermanent.

Everything that has a beginning has an end. - The Oracle

Dictionary.com defines Impermanent as: Not lasting or durable; not permanent.

Many people believe that things are forever and become attached to them. Then, when as with everything in life these things are lost, or destroyed or simply disappear they are shocked and devastated, unable to deal with the grief of loosing that thing that they have come to love. The Oracle’s use of this statement, “Everything that has a beginning, has an end” is used to try and get Neo to see that life (The Matrix) in impermanent, it is not long lasting or permanent. As in the life, The Matrix (being designed that way) will not last and will eventually come to an end.

The important lesson to be learnt here is simple. Begin to accept that everything in life will eventually come to an end. You will not be a child forever, eventually you will pay off your mortgage, your boss won’t be mean to you forever, friends and loved ones will move away, you will eventually win through in your endeavors if you stick at them. The trick to living with impermanence is to minimise your attachments to things because when you are not emotionally attached to things you do not suffer and mourn when they are gone.

TheNewHorizonsProject.co.uk on Impermanence: The Pre-Occupation with you – A Different View Point

Lesson 3: Denial is not honesty, no matter how you dress it up.

Denial is the most predictable of all human responses. - The Architect

Denial is something we can all relate with. We either deny our involvement in situations or we refuse to accept the truth when it’s staring us right in the face, whatever your preferred type of denial we are all guilty of too much denial in our lives. By failing to accept our responsibilities or by not accepting our faults and failures we not only hurt others but we hurt ourselves because we are not being honest in our lives. The Architect, in this scene, is showing his contempt for humans and pointing out their most useless and destructive response to life.

Maybe there is something in your life that you have being failing to accept the truth about. Maybe you’ve been telling yourself false truths because the reality is far too hard to deal with; either way you’re suffering from denial. The best way to over come this is to focus on the positive things in life and also to try and be more honest with yourself.

About the Author
My name is Ben and you can find more posts like this at my blog www.thenewhorizonsproject.co.uk. The New Horizons Project is a blog that focuses on positive thinking, success, and motivation with a sprinkling of unusual influences, including films, martial arts, eastern philosophies, and Buddhism. It will challenge you to see the world differently.