Today is the tomorrow you worried about...yesterday

Often, in life, we don't appreciate what we have. We try to go after what we don't. And thereby lies the hitch. We want every day to be perfect, knowing fully well that it is going to be anything but that. So what is it that keeps all of us going? Hope? Ambition? Love? Whatever you may want to call it, I feel given a chance we'd all like (sub-consciously) to live life - live every single day in fact, in exactly the same way as today. Because then we get a chance to better ourselves. We get a chance to change things for the better if you will. We get - a 2nd chance.

I watched the movie Groundhog Day today.

You know, the funny thing is, many years ago, when it was supposed to be aired on TV (Star TV I guess - back in the early 90s, when star movies was just a segment in Star TV, and not an independent channel), I rescheduled a whole lot of my plans just so I could sit and watch this movie. I'd heard a lot about it.

Guess what? I couldn't.

Some years later, I saw the DVD of the movie, sitting on a shelf in a bookstore. Aha. I had to buy it. I said to myself - "oh well, I'll browse some more, and pick it up on the way back to the payment section."

I never did. I got several opportunities after that day to buy the dvd, borrow the movie from a friend - borrow from a library even. But...I never did. I don't know why.

Then the Internet arrived. Torrents arrived. And One afternoon, it struck me that I'd never gotten around to seeing this movie, after so many failed chances (I don't know if the chances were failed, or whether it just so happened). I ran a search, and voila! It was available. I set it up on queue, and forgot all about it.

This was in 2005...I think. I don't know, I think it was that. Yeah.

So, anyway. I forgot all about it, and the movie might've just sat in the hard disk for the whole time. I don't know, I never bothered to find out. I fixed my computer several times along the way, got myself a new processor (twice in fact), and two monitors. But I never got around to watching this damn movie.

And today, was a day I'd not planned for. Nothing at all. I was sitting in the living room, not thinking about anything in particular. Had a rough day at work, so was just letting my hair down. No TV, no book, no newspaper. Just me (wife and daughter had gone to visit an aunt) and my thoughts.

It was then, that I started thinking about what I could change in my life, given another chance. What. Was it the job? The city? The life? What could I change? And would it be for the better. And oh yes, I did think about writing. Would I be a writer in that 'other' life? Huh? Would I? Would I want to change anything at all?

And Bam. Just like that. I suddenly thought about my old computer. The one that I'd unplugged a while ago. I did most of my work on my laptop anyway. And the old thing had become just that. A thing. And with its thought, came the memory.

Groundhog day! Was it downloaded at all? Would it still be there? Let me check, I thought. I pulled the dusty box off the attic, wiped it clean and assembled the whole thing back again. Yeah, you read it right - I assembled the whole thing again.

As the "1998 model AMD athlon-upgraded-with-at least 2-processors-and a motherboard-son-of-a-metallic-gun" spluttered to life like Rip Van Winkle, I watched the familiar green meadow appear on the monitor. I watched those icons that I'd almost forgotten. I heard the familiar 'ding-a-ling' tune that windows xp (the first version) played when the desktop appeared, and smiled.

Opened the explorer, navigated to a folder I so creatively (and always) name 'movies' :), and opened it. And guess what, I'd actually deleted all my movies from it. Say, as a part of backing it all up on dvds, or moving it all to the laptop. All but one. Groundhog day.

It was like digging a fossil out of a long forgotten era.

I settled in front of the computer, right there on the floor where I'd assembled it all - and watched the movie.

After 7 years. And believe it or not, with tears in my eyes (toward the end). It was as if the movie was a part of my destiny. A part that I would not change at all. A part, no matter how many days I woke up to the same day (watch the movie to understand what I say), would remain the same. Unchanged. Undeleted. Waiting for me to watch it. Again. And again.

It was like time traveling.

So then I asked myself. Would I want life any different from what it is today? Would I want tomorrow to be today - again?

Heck, why not?