What I Learned About Life From Hulu

There's a new movie on Hulu called "Palm Springs." It's a dark comedy where the main characters are caught in a time loop. They are stuck in a day that repeats itself over and over again, "Groundhog Day" style. The difference between the two films is that in "Palm Springs," more than one person is caught in the cycle, and falling in love or doing the right thing doesn't break them free.

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The movie made me think about my life, and if I had to be stuck in a time loop, what day I would like to repeat. It would be so predictable to say, "the day I met my spouse," "the day my children were born," "the day I met Britney Spears," or "the day I was kicked out of the Playboy Mansion." Okay, the last two were probably specific to me, but you get the idea.

In these movies, they don't get to pick the day that keeps repeating. The day that repeats is usually pretty bad. It's not a day that you want to remember. It's that day you got fired, the day you realized you were broke when your debit card was declined on a date, or when someone thought it would be funny to slip a Viagra pill into your lunch and you spent the next four hours extremely frustrated. Again, probably too specific to me.

The point being that it's the bad days that you learn from. You may not physically repeat them, but you repeat them in your head over and over again. We're continually trying to avoid making the mistakes that led to those days. If they were unavoidable, we try to find better ways to react to them. How we respond to those bad days makes us who we are.

Many of us feel like we've been living the same day since March 25th, when Governor Little's stay at home order went into effect. Since then, our bank accounts have been drained, and like in the movie, frustration has mounted. Movies like "Palm Springs" teach us that laughter and friendship is the only way through these times. It's a reminder to help the friends that you know are struggling and be kind to people you don't know. If you feel like you're living the same day over and over, you're not alone. Reach out, talk to someone, and watch a funny movie. We'll get to tomorrow... eventually.