A lesson from Groundhog Day

I began to see parallels between Groundhog Day and LDS singles life.  They’re so instructive, all LDS singles should take a lesson from Groundhog Day.

Today is Groundhog Day, and it’s official.  Punxsutawney Phil, the famed groundhog, saw his shadow.  Be ready for six more weeks of winter.

With more winter here, I thought I’d snuggle up with a cup of cocoa and revisit the film Groundhog Day.  If you haven’t seen this, your education is woefully deficient.  This classic is one of Bill Murray’s best.  If you haven’t seen it, stop what you’re doing right now and get yourself educated.

Having seen this classic many times, I’m, of course, not deficient in my education (at least not in this area — I’m sure I’m deficient in others).  But something occurred to me as I watched it again.  I began to see parallels between Groundhog Day and LDS singles life.  They’re so instructive, all LDS singles should take a lesson from Groundhog Day.

See the situation

The story begins with Phil Connors, the weatherman for Channel 9 News in Pittsburgh.  The man is clearly full of himself, so it’s no surprise no one really likes him, not even himself.  He’s a rather disgruntled man who thinks covering the Groundhog Day Festival is beneath him.

So imagine his shock when he wakes up thinking it’s February 3rd only to find out it’s February 2nd again.  The bewilderment continues as each morning he wakes up to find that somehow in his sleep he went back in time by one day.  He keeps living the same day over and over again.

His first reaction is denial.  This can’t be happening to me!  Denial drives resistance, but no matter how he fights against his situation, the next morning is always February 2nd again.  His denial then turns into despair.  This report he gives at the festival summarizes his condition rather well.

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Once again the eyes of the nation have turned here to this tiny village in western Pennsylvania, blah, blah blah, blah blah.  There is no way this winter is ever going to end — as long as this groundhog keeps seeing his shadow. I don’t see any other way out.  He’s gotta be stopped, and I have to stop him.

That day ended in suicide, but it doesn’t end him.  In despair, Phil keeps trying to kill himself in different ways trying unsuccessfully to escape his never-ending cycle.

Note the pivot

And then one of those February 2nd days becomes a pivot day when everything changes.  Phil doesn’t escape the never-ending cycle, but he does find a new perspective on his situation.  And what changed everything was Rita.

Rita is Phil’s producer.  She’s also the apple of his eye.  Previously he spent God knows how many successive February 2nd days trying to get into her pants.  But on his pivot day, Phil approaches Rita with a different agenda.  Instead of trying to satiate his lust, he sincerely cries for help.  (Why do I have a Rick Astley song in my head right now?)  Rita helps him and in the process begins to fall for him.

Of course, that disappears when everything resets the next morning.  But Phil remains changed, and he starts spending his February 2nd days improving upon himself, working to become a better, more quality person.  He takes up reading all kinds of books.  He learns to play the piano.  He takes up ice sculpting!  Not only do his efforts make him a better person, they make his life more interesting.

And the proof is in this report.  It’s the same day, same festival, but a completely different Phil.

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When Chekhov saw the long winter, he saw a winter bleak and dark, bereft of hope.  Yet we know that winter is just another step in the cycle of life.  But standing here among the people of Punxsutawney and basking in the warmth of their hearths and hearts, I couldn’t imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous winter.  From Punxsutawney, it’s Phil Connors. So long.

Once he stopped trying to escape his situation and embraced it, Phil was able to tap into the joy  life has to offer every single day.  In the end, he escapes the cycle and gets the girl.

Take a lesson

The allegory here to LDS singles is so clear I wonder why I didn’t see it earlier.  How many of us singles are in denial?  No, I can’t be single.  This can’t be happening to me!  And no matter what we do to fight it, we seem caught in a never-ending cycle of singleness from which we cannot escape.

But if we’d stop trying to escape from it and start embracing it, we could turn everything around.  We could start looking inside ourselves and working to become better, more quality people.  We can do things to make our lives more interesting.  We could tap into the joy God wants us to have every single day.

And we could help other singles to have their pivot day.  Just as Rita helped turn things around for Phil, we can reach out to one another.  Instead of looking only to satiate our own agendas when we interact with each other, we could help each other live better lives.

When we take a lesson from Groundhog Day, we can make the most of what seems to be a never-ending cycle of singleness.  By embracing our situation instead of trying to escape from it, we can live our best life and help others to do the same.  And that will bring us more joy in our journey.

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