A Journey Through Great Travel Films
Movies That Show The Benefits Of Travel And Adventure
Image by L.E. Wilson from RedBubble based on work by Jan Alexander on Pixabay
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.
If you look for ways to feel miserable, you will find them. But you can just as easily find ways to feel happy and satisfied. Sometimes many aspects of living feel like drudgery because much of what we have to do can only really be described as tedious. Paying taxes, is one such example. The horror of filling out any form is painful enough, but to be forced to work to pay taxes under threats from a government that demands you calculate how much money it can take from your paycheck—and will punish you if you get it wrong—is Kafkaesque indeed. This is the kind of stuff that could send a person into an existential crisis, particularly if both work-life and home-life are filled with too many endless, repetitive, boring, and seemingly pointless tasks running on a Sisyphean loop. Seriously, don’t we have the technology so the government can just directly take money out of our paychecks and let us be?
So what do movies have to say about getting out of a rut and regaining the joy for life amidst the very real struggle to survive? The answer is to take a trip. When Joe, who is a poor sap trapped in the cogwheel of an uncaring company that makes him feel sick all the time finds out that he only has a few months to live due to a terminal illness, he asks his doctor what he should do. The doctor responds, “Well, if you have any savings, you might think about taking a trip. A vacation. […] You have some time left Mr. Banks. You have some life left. My advice to you is: live it well.” This is from the 1990 movie Joe Versus the Volcano, which also has this beautiful quote, “My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know. Everybody you see. Everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake and they live in a state of constant total amazement.”
And there you have it. The secret to getting out of a rut and regaining your joy for life is to take a different perspective and make sure that you let yourself, in your heart, truly feel grateful for your life, as Joe Banks does in a scene when he looks on as the moon rises over the sea:
Dear God, whose name I do not know, thank you for my life. I forgot—how big. Thank you. Thank you for my life.
Interestingly, taking a trip, packing a bag and going somewhere different, sort of automatically sets you up for both of these things. The movies are not wrong about that. But why is that? Well, because traveling is a hassle, but it’s also powerfully eye-opening—and there’s nothing more fun for the human brain than novelty. Or, as a store clerk tells Joe, “You travel the world, you’re away from home, perhaps away from your family, all you have to depend on is yourself, and your luggage.”
In other words, taking a trip is an invigorating physical and mental challenge, as well as a rewarding enriching experience. All you have to do is make the best of it—of the discomforts, the unfamiliarity, the crowds of people, the dysregulation—so that you can take in life with a new set of eyes and then feel, when you finally come home, that it is wonderful.
This same theme is repeated in the following movies:
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Life Lesson: You already have what you are looking for.
🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)Sullivan’s Travels (1941)
Life Lesson: We don’t laugh because we’re happy, we are happy because we laugh.— William James
🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)The Out of Towners (1999)
Life Lesson: It’s never too late to make a positive change.
🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)Back to the Future (1985)
Life Lesson: Learn to persevere—if you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.
🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)Joe Versus the Volcano (1990)
Life Lesson: To live your life well, do what you’re afraid to do.
🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)
Life Lesson: The abc’s of how to live: Be adventurous, brave, creative, devoted—and employed.
🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)
And it can even be found in the animated Disney classic, Lady and the Tramp (1955), which has these memorable lines:
Look again, Pidge. Look, there’s a great big hunk of world down there with no fence around it. Where two dogs can find adventure and excitement. And beyond those distant hills, who knows what wonderful experiences? And it’s all ours for the taking, Pidge. It’s all ours. […] Oh, come on, kid. Start building some memories.
Life Lesson: Life is an adventure.
🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)
So please, let yourself feel more alive and start planning a trip. It doesn’t have to be long; it doesn’t have to be far. But if you need to feel brave, remember what Joe’s wife, Patricia, tells him, “Nobody knows anything. We’ll take this leap and we’ll see. We’ll jump and we’ll see. That’s life.”
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