Mr. Toads Wild Ride- Pivot

Did you misplace your instruction manual for life? me too! Let's explore this chapter from Mr. Toads' wild ride and see what it may tell us about pivoting in life? 

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Are there hidden instruction manuals for life? I mean, like, how do we even know what to do? how everything works? How do we navigate this thing, right? I am a firm believer that all through movies and cultural things and stories and philosophies are all the not not the answers, but sort of maybe a guidebook or a playbook or hints or tips or something, right. And one of my favorites is Mr. Toads, wild ride. Now, this was a ride in Disney World, I believe it was there originally, when they opened, I think they closed it. Maybe in 2000, I got a chance to ride this ride, it was phenomenal. And we're gonna actually talk about different parts of the ride in a couple of episodes here. To give you a big overview. It's Mr. Toads, wild ride, you know, when you go through a room where this guy is like teetering on a ladder, like juggling all these books, and you almost careen into a river. And then you take a really sharp turn and go through a town and all this crazy stuff happening. And then a bar with beer mugs, spinning, and then a courtroom and no jewelry where you're like being judged and condemned. And ultimately, at the end of the ride, there is someone who resembles the devil, offering your redemption by choosing to exit the ride, I'm not even going to start there, I am going to start with the river, which is basically the second attraction on the ride, and just riddled with so much insight into life and options and things that you can do in life, letting go making choices, if you choose to reflect on it and think about what it could possibly mean to you and for you in your life. So as the ride goes, You're careening towards the river, right? You're about to go into the river, you're thinking this is it, I'm going to die, I'm going into the drink. And then all of a sudden, you make this crazy sharp turn and go in completely a different direction. And there's a lot of interesting things to look at here. First, you could say, well, maybe I need to go into the river, like how do they teach babies to swim by throwing them into the pool, right? And maybe I need to learn to swim. And there's something really magical for me on the other side of the river. But that's not what happens in this particular ride. So I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole today. What happens is you make a really sharp turn. And there's so much cool stuff to look at and talk about with regard to this pivoting in life making sharp and sudden turns. When we do this, you were obviously trying to save ourselves from the river we recognize maybe at the very last minute, Oh, hell no, not for me, I'm getting crazy sharp turn, going in entirely different direction. And so much happens here. You could have people around you saying hey, what are you doing? You're like da sharp turn, you know, like, other people don't see what you see, maybe they don't see the river, they don't understand the fear of the river or whatever. And you make the sharp turn. And after not too long, you're what a couple of towns down right? You are pretty far away from the river. Now, that could be the end of it if you've let go of the river, right? You know how much I love letting go. But that can be challenging. And like anything else when we just bring it into our awareness. And what a fun way to do it right? Thinking about our lives as Mr. Toads wild ride and using this fun story analogy to consider and keep in the front of our awareness, options and possibilities and tips, tips for how to live life. And so something that I've personally been working on lately is disciplining myself, to not keep thinking about the river, like, or the narrative telling the story this is this is something I'm already pretty good at personally, but you don't want to go out telling your story about the rubber. You know what, three years ago I almost careened into the river. That River is a jerk, that river needs to stop being a river, right? And you keep these emotions, all the same feelings you had right? As you're about to careened into that river. They're being triggered the hormones, the chemicals in your body. If you keep telling the story and keep revisiting the idea of the river, then that is what you're going to keep feeling emotionally and it's going to continue to haunt you this river. The other thing I like, though, about when you make this very sharp turn, you make a commitment. You have just made boom, an internal decision, a really big internal commitment. And I don't think we really give that the credit that it deserves and recognize that for the incredible thing that it is. In the book, The Alchemist, he says, when there is no way of going back there is only the best way of moving forward to be concerned with and I just love that line. And this really speaks to that whole letting go of the story. Stop letting the river hijack your emotions, basically, because all you've got at this point is the best way to move forward to concern yourself with and you've made this commitment. And what a beautiful thing when you make that commitment. However, I'm out here done. And when we make a commitment to something that is such a huge, huge driving force, so we don't want to let it fizzle out. And, you know, get a little further down the road and forget how passionate we were and how committed we were to ourselves when we chose to save ourselves from going into that river. So I just wanted to talk about the river part of the ride today. And for sure, in the next episode, I'm going to talk about another part of this attraction. I just think it is a deliciously fun way to think about our own lives and navigating lives. And when I think about Mr. Toads, wild ride as a whole, kind of just say, buy the ticket, take the ride, fuck it, I'm in got to kind of do that. In life. I'm here. We talked about the guy at the end offering you redemption by getting off the ride. No, no, really, I don't. I'm just gonna keep riding, you know, I'm good. Rivers and all. So that's just a little fun stuff for you to think about and have fun with it and figure out what does it mean to you? Does it have any meaning to you? Do any of these ideas kind of help you rethink things you have done things you could do moving forward? Are they tips and oh no, I just wanted to share it with you. And I will talk to you in the next episode. Well, where we will be visiting another attraction on Mr. Toads wild ride