No, it’s nowhere near February 2 as I write this, and there are no fuzzy vermin marmots ready to determine if they see their shadow or not anywhere near me. Today I would like to muse a bit on how life is like the Bill Murray movie “Groundhog Day,” which just happens to be one of my favorite films. This morning, as I was sleepless in my bed (and I’m not the only one teacher who appears to be afflicted with a bad case of insomnia lately, unfortunately), I pondered how life is like “Groundhog Day.” You keep doing the same thing over and over again until you do it right.

I would hope that I’m not as much in need of second and third and fourth chances of getting things right as Bill Murray’s hapless and arrogant Pittsburgh weatherman. He keeps on repeating the same day over and over again, during which he despairs of his existence and finally learns how to be a good person, using his foreknowledge of the day’s events to eventually prove himself to be a worthy man for his love interest. And how does he know when he has lived his day correctly? He wakes up beside her. It is not always so obvious, but the principle is generally the same for our more mundane lives.

After all, we are not stuck in groundhog day. We do not repeat the same day over and over again until we get it right, but we do face the same problems over and over again until we master them, before we can move on to bigger challenges. We are never finished mastering some problem, which keeps life entertaining. There are always problems, regardless of how many resources and how much money we have, but those problems are different based on our experiences and our own particular blend of strengths and weaknesses. But in one way we are all like Bill Murray–we all keep working at the same key problems over and over again until we solve them successfully, and then we move on to something else that is an even bigger challenge, and then we work on that. And so on.

Sadly, I have not been very good at resolving my problems. I’m still on the same hamster wheel I have been on for many years. During that time I have learned a great deal about myself and others, and I have become a far wiser and far more compassionate person than I would have been had I been left alone in my own personal quixotic folly, but I am still dealing with the same sort of frustrated longings that I have been dealing with since my adolescence. I would hope I am far more mature now than I was then, but the same things I most wanted then are the things I most want now–love, respect, a stable and reasonably secure life. I am less nervous when I was younger, but the world is no less stable. I am less of a lone wolf than I was as a younger person, but I am no less lonely. I am far less disrespectful than I was as a teenager, but at the same time I still have much to work on in developing healthy trust with others. Groundhog Day might be nearing its end, but it’s not done yet. Not yet.

Our lives are giant narratives, but I know my own life is far more complicated than a movie, even one as good as “Groundhog Day.” But the lessons are still good ones. Since the problems I have chosen to tackle in this long age of my life have been deep and fundamental problems, I hope it does not reflect badly on me that I am still wrestling with the same fundamental interrelated problems that I have for many years. Since I have not had my own happy ending, I assume I still have something still left to learn and practice, and so I do my best to be patiently working to beautify my own garden until that time comes. It is not easy, but God willing, it will be worth it.