Groundhog Day (Feb. 2) is not a religious holiday, but it is the title of a classic 1993 comedy that has been discussed by spiritual thinkers since it was released. The main character, Phil Connors, an arrogant, unfriendly and sarcastic news anchor, becomes trapped in a time loop while on an assignment he sees as below him. Every morning for a lengthy but undefined period of time, he wakes up to the same radio show playing Sonny and Cher's "I've Got You Babe" in a bed and breakfast in Punxsutawney, PA. He has travelled there to cover Groundhog's Day festivities. No one else shares his time loop or past Groundhog Day memories. Phil's repetitive experience draws the attention of religious thinkers because it depicts struggles that define human experience, including banality, repetition, and dealing with what we cannot control. While Phil faces unique obstacles to progress, in many ways the cycles he endures are not that different from what we all experience in daily life. Got enough sleep last night? Good job! Now do it again. Finished your homework? Great! Now here's some more (see religious philosopher Adam Miller's essay "Groundhog Day" in Rube Goldberg Machines).
Phil experiments with different approaches to cope with the daily reset cycle, including hedonism (focus on pleasure) and nihilism (a framework in which life is ultimately meaningless). These modes of being contribute to him falling into a period of apathy and despair. But one day, when Phil and Rita, his producer and love interest, have a rare experience connecting deeply like intimate friends, Rita listens to and actually believes Phil's account of the time loop he is trapped in. She invites Phil to see his seemingly endless time as a gift to be used with care rather than just a burden. Feeling truly seen and cared for by Rita energizes Phil to try a completely different approach. He comes to recognize that while the world around him can only progress one day before being reset, he is still capable of learning and enjoying new things. He finds ways to learn to play the piano and ice sculpt.
Yet it seems what really enables Phil to thrive within his undesired circumstances is his choice to start connecting with and loving other people. He comes to recognize that despite spending most of his time with strangers who won't remember him the next day, he still enjoys getting to know other people and helping them in response to their needs both large and small. Eventually he creates an energizing daily schedule that includes personal development, friendship, and compassionate service. Phil literally performs the same acts of service-- including saving one boy's life by catching him from a fall from a tree, changing an older women's flat tire, and giving a man the heimlich maneuver to prevent him from choking-- day in and day out. In doing so, even Phil's caustic personality transforms and expands; he becomes humble, sincere and kind (while still retaining enough goofy Bill Murray-style humor). He comes to take joy in doing what he can to relieving others' loneliness and suffering, and he comes to love and feel tightly connected with the small town community of Punxsutawney.
The writer David Foster Wallace asserted that “[t]he really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.” It seems to me that it is in cultivating this unobtrusive but invaluable variety of freedom that Phil discovers fulfillment beyond what he had before the time trap. The solutions he finds to his crisis are not at all what he ever would have ever chosen from the get-go; they are hard won fruits gleaned through trial and error and soul searching. Ultimately, Phil's undesired cyclical life becomes a transformative tutorial in becoming a loving and relationally developed person. For us as it is the case in this story, what actually brings fulfillment in the face of the disappointing and uncontrollable aspects of life can prove counterintuitive or surprising. This is one reason to always carry hope that as unwanted obstacles arise or we feel stuck, unforeseen joy, growth, and connection may be waiting for us just around the corner.
Whatever repetitive routines or obstacles you may be facing now now, may you find ways to enjoy developing yourself and connecting with others in ways you find fulfilling.
