I just watched Groundhog Day for the first time in quite a few years.  I had almost forgotten what a great message that movie packs.  Phil Connors is a selfish, ambitious weatherman who is living in the moment.  After he goes to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania to cover the Groundhog Day festivities for WPBH Pittsburgh, Phil finds himself stuck there, reliving Groundhog Day over and over again.  At first, Phil uses his situation for greedy and hilarious purposes; my favorite being when he shows up at the movie theater to see Heidi II in a shiny Mercedes and totally decked out as Clint Eastwood from Fistful of Dollars, with his French maid-costumed companion in tow.

“That’ll be one adult.”

When Phil realizes that no amount of scheming or conning is going to win over Rita, the object of Phil’s affection, he almost gives up, focusing instead on bettering himself through reading, studying piano, caring for the homeless, and performing selfless acts of kindness.  By the end of the movie he doesn’t have to do anything to win over Rita–she falls in love with him just by seeing what a genuinely good man he has become.

Sometimes I feel like I’m living the same day over and over again.  It is far too easy to let one day blur into the next and then the next.  But we can slow down and separate the days by taking time to focus on the things that matter and investing in today for a better tomorrow.  If we take the example of the non-selfish version of Phil Connors, we might find ourselves better people down the road, better equipped to deal with whatever opportunity comes our way.

I love this picture.  It shows my son Westley lost in adventure in a place that I’ve always considered sort of magical.  The tall grass he is running through is just about the exact site where the old restaurant sat in The Goonies.  In the background you can see where the boys dragged their bikes up the hill when they first began their hunt for One Eyed Willie’s “rich stuff”.  Behind that you see various headlands and monoliths, including Haystack Rock, one of the most photographed sites in the world (and the site of the ORV ralley).  In this amazing setting, Westley ran and played and jumped like a wild person.  He chased birds until they burst into flight.  He bravely marched along trails with steep dropoffs (a little too bravely for my comfort).

When I was a kid The Goonies came out in the movie theater.  After seeing it, I realized that my favorite characters in the movie were the places featured in the film: the town of Astoria with it’s huge green bridge crossing the Columbia River, Cannon Beach with its mystery and beauty, the subterranean caves that promised great reward…and great peril.  These amazing locations are what first caused me to come here as a young adult.  And they sparked a host of new adventures in my mind that I’ve capture in stories I’ve written, and some that I have yet to write.

When I was a kid, I went fishing almost every day.  I rode my bike for miles until I ended up in other towns.  I jumped ramps and got scraped up and bruised in the process.  I did what boys are supposed to do.  It does my heart so much good to see that spirit alive in my own son.  Don’t be afraid to live out your own adventure.  Because, like Mark Twain said:

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

Well said.

Athera’s Dawn has been a long time coming for fantasy author Christopher Hopper.  His White Lion Chronicles was cut off short in 2007 after The Lion Vrie due to his contract ending with Tsaba House.  His third installment in the series has been five years in the making.  And you can still read it free at Christopher’s website, as he is releasing a chapter per day.  I am especially stoked about this as I am one of the lucky few who got to proofread the series before Christopher published the series under the new imprint Spearhead Books.  The White Lion Chronicles are available in Kindle and print editions.