More and more lately I am amazed at the words of wisdom in my son’s various cartoon shows and movies. I have always been aware that most cartoons carry some moral, even if only on subtle or subconscious level, but lately, or rather more accurately over the past couple of years, I have been hearing phrases that make me stop and think “Wow. That came from a cartoon? I want to remember that.” As a matter of fact I wrote another entry about a year ago that I called ‘Unexpectedly caught my ear‘ that started to address this growing phenomenon in my life. While I would like to believe that I would have noticed these things no matter what I can’t discount the possibility that they are jumping out at me more and more because of the fact that I am struggling through a difficult time. Regardless of the reason or reasons these various phrases are catching my attention the fact remains that they are and they are resonating with me.
While I am attempting to give you the quotes verbatim they may not be exact. There are several phrases that I have heard and liked, but can’t remember them all, so here just a few of the phrases that have stood out to me, in no particular order, are:
- “Let it happen around you, not to you.” – Ben 10
- “Mistakes are just little steps you take on your way to learning something big.” – Justin Time
- “Everyone deserves to be loved.” – Strange Magic
The one that I find myself repeating to most lately is “Let it happen around you, not to you.” This is because I have not reached the point of being indifferent about what my soon-to-be-ex says to me and since he has a habit of threatening and bullying me to try and get me to do or agree to what he wants (his threats regularly revolve around taking as much of my time with my son away from me as possible) I have a tendency to worry and panic. Even if these kinds of things were unusual for him I know that they are fairly normal tactics in a divorce. This knowledge doesn’t stop the fear and panic that grips my heart every time he makes one of these threats. While it may be a strange place to find a motto or even potentially find words of comfort cartoons are as good a place as any to find them. (Especially for someone who has a great dislike of the cliched platitudes that are used way too frequently.) So far it hasn’t been extremely helpful, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t be at some point in the future.
I am somewhat inclined to believe that there is something to be learned from many of the different things that surround, pass through or are just generally part of our everyday lives. Sometime the things that can be learned are good, sometimes they are bad and sometimes that really depends on the kind of person that you are. With so many different things to learn around us all of the time I really shouldn’t be surprised to be catching these – – words of wisdom, for lack of a better phrase, in cartoons and yet I am. I guess it is just a good reminder that we are never too old to learn something, most especially when we were not looking to learn anything and that those lessons can come from the most unexpected places. It would be nice to be able to reach a place, sooner rather than later, where I can not only appreciate the value of things like “Let it happen around you, not to you.”, but also be able to really and truly implement them into my life like I want to. Until then I guess I will have to stick with appreciating ‘Life’s little easter eggs’ ©.