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"A New Metaphor: Life is Like Watching a Movie – and YOU are the Star!\nLife is a lot of things to a lot of people. To a colleague of mine (now deceased) it’s a bowl of cherries. To some it’s a bitch, to others a carousel or roller-coaster ride. Whatever our personal take on life, one thing is clear: Life is what You (or I) make of it. In other words, the metaphor we use is the metaphor we choose. If life is fine, then your metaphor works for you. But if life is less than satisfactory, then maybe it’s time to choose a new metaphor? I invite you here to consider the movie metaphor, only because by means of it I have personally come to experience less trouble, less suffering, more happiness, and even bliss, using this definition.\nSo this is how it goes:\n\nLife is like watching a movie.\nYou are the main star – the hero(ine).\nThe people close to you are co-starring.\nThe film set mirrors the world you experience daily.\nYou sit back to enjoy the show.\n\nAt some points you become more actively involved.\nAt other points you lose interest for a while.\nWhen things are going well for your hero(ine), you feel happy.\nWhen life sucks for him/her, then you feel unhappy.\n\nYour equanimity, stability and well-being depend heavily on ‘how things are going’ for your hero(ine).\nProgress is determined by how closely the performance fits with your pre-conceived idea of how ‘things’ ought to be.\nDeviations from the ideal produce emotions ranging from confusion, anger or sadness, through to rage and despair.\nAll such emotions are rooted in fear. You don’t necessarily realise this.\nLittle wonder your pulse, breathing and vital organs are affected!\n\nThe essential underlying fear is that the show will somehow end unhappily, tragically, which would spell ‘failure’ for you.\nTo prevent this from happening you need to remain vigilant and in control – your screen character that is.\nAt times this proves such a challenge that you feel like giving up.\nIf you were to give up entirely you’d likely fall asleep in your seat – exhausted.\nAnd you’d probably only awaken to catch the final scene, as your character meets his/her demise.\n\nYou are happiest when your star is fully in control of the set – as though it’s ‘in the pocket’.\nYou are rooting at all times for your hero(ine) to gain control in order to win – to come out victorious.\nWinning is of paramount importance, is undertaken at all cost, and unthinkable not to happen.\nIt is only by means of winning that your movie will have all been worthwhile.\nIt’s also the only way you can feel ‘worth it’.\n\nAt some point it occurs to you, that the characters on set seem to be doing your bidding – acting somehow in accord with your wishes.\nAt first you think this absurd and impossible – it’s only a movie!\nBut you play with the idea and become more convinced this is so.\nNow for the first time you become fully absorbed – totally immersed in the action.\nYou begin to live life fully through your character on screen – forgetting it’s just a movie.\n\nIn reality you are still sat in the cinema – watching the show unaffected.\nThe screen before you, although appearing to be real, contains all your own images, imagination – projections.\nBut your identification with your movie-star is so complete that you are unaware of the truth – your real Self.\nSo however ‘things are going’, well or badly for your on-screen hero(ine), one tragedy remains:\nYou have well and truly lost Yourself in this dream-world you’re trying to manipulate.\n\nLife is just like a movie.\nAnd this is how ‘the world’ is made – how we each make our own world, and collectively make it together.\nIn your mind, step away from the screen for just a second, and you will remember Yourself as the one watching.\nHaving done so once, you will never again forget Yourself entirely.\nAnd when the going gets tough for your hero(ine), you’ll somehow know it’s not as real as you imagine!\n\nThat’s the movie metaphor in a nutshell, as far as I can cram it in! You don’t need to believe it in order to use it. Just like you don’t literally believe life is a bitch or a roller-coaster! Life is life. But metaphors are useful. They help us make sense and meaning of our experience here. But more importantly, they help us create.\nI wish you well in creating the work of art that has come to be known as ‘your life’.\nSteve\n"
<https://transcendentalexpressionism.com/blogs/ideas/life-is-like-watching-a-movie-where-the-main-star-is-you>