Today is Groundhog Day -- What Day Would You Want to Re-Live?

Today, February 2, is Groundhog Day. My associations with this quasi-holiday are less about a groundhog’s prediction about the beginning of spring, and more about the movie Groundhog Day.

In the movie, Phil Connors (played by Bill Murray) is a cranky, cynical weatherman who, while on assignment covering the annual Groundhog Day Festival, finds himself re-living the same day, over and over again.

(Which reminds me of a scene from another movie: in Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters, when Mickey reflects, “Nietzsche, with his theory of eternal recurrence. He said the life we live, we'll live over and over, the same way for eternity. Great. I'll have to sit through the Ice-Capades again.”)

Noticing that Groundhog Day was approaching prompted me to reflect: “If I had to re-live one day over and over, what would I want to do with it?” I’m such a lover of routine and familiarity that my perfect day wouldn’t be made up of anything very dramatic or exotic. Just reading in bed, for example, would take up several hours.

I asked some friends what they’d do during their perfect days, and the striking thing was how…attainable…these perfect days were. Several people distinguished between “a perfect day at home” and “a perfect day while traveling,” and one friend’s perfect “home” day was a Saturday morning trip to the green market, an afternoon trip to Whole Foods, a few hours spent cooking something challenging, and friends over for dinner. That isn’t an impossible dream! But when I asked how often she spent a day this way, she said, “I don’t know why not, exactly, but I can’t remember the last time I spent a day like that.”

So Groundhog Day makes a good yearly spur to ask: “What would my perfect day be?” It might be easier than you think to arrange it.

*
A family friend wrote a very moving tribute to his wife, a year after she died of cancer.

*
Interested in starting your own happiness project? If you’d like to take a look at my personal Resolutions Chart, for inspiration, just email me at grubin, then the “at” sign, then gretchenrubin dot com. (Sorry about writing it in that roundabout way; I’m trying to thwart spammers.) Just write “Resolutions Chart” in the subject line.

Comments

[ML]

I really liked your phrase about how attainable a perfect day is!

It reminded me of a great cartoon that I once saw of a guy saying that he had kept a list of all the things he was going to do when he retired, but when he actually retired and got down to doing everything on the list, "I didn't realize it would only take six weeks to do!"

[Laggie]

That also reminds me of when a character dies in Our Town and is told that she can pick any day to go back and "relive" and she says she doesn't want to choose a milestone - like a huge birthday party or her wedding but just an ordinary day. I've always thought we should shoot for having as many wonderful ordinary days as we can. Great post! Thanks!

[Beth]

I know this sounds really cheesy but I probably wouldn't care WHAT I was doing in a day I had to repeat, but WHO I was doing it with. I would very happily live any day I have spent with my boyfriend, best friends and close family over and over again. Cheesy but true =)

[Sus]

It's hard to pick - I have a lot of different ideas about the perfect day. Luckily, they do happen quite often. But, I remember one day in particular I had a wonderful time with my daughter as a toddler - out for the first time alone after her brother was born. We played and went for a milkshake and laughed like crazy. It was so great, I kept trying to recreate it by doing the exact same things over again - right down to the milkshake. Of course, the moment was as fleeting as it was special. Now, I don't try so hard to force it, but I do try hard to recognize those special moments when they happen.

[The Healthy Librarian]

Here's another take on Groundhog Day. I posted this last year on Groundhog Day and then again today. It just happens to be one of my all time favorite movies.

Happy Groundhog Day: Lessons from the Movie - We Keep Living the Same Day Over & Over Again Until We Get It Right!

"Making the best of what we have....is not second best. It is rather, a demand for active engagement in caring for what and whom we value. That is what's touching about Groundhog Day." -Ellen Goodman-

If you'd like to read the whole post, you'll find it here:

http://www.happyhealthylonglife.com/happy_healthy_long_life/2009/02/groundhog-day.html

[Christopher]

I'm with you Gretchen - give me a cup of coffee and the Sunday New York Times (and peace and quiet)...bliss.

[Valerie]

A perfect day for me would be waking up to spotless house, taking happy kids to school to return to a creative job I absolutely love, eating a shrimp pasta dish with lots of olive oil and fresh garlic. And an evening of relaxing music, maybe dancing or sharing a great book with my husband. Laughing and talking with my children without the feeling of rush or stress that is always there like behind my ears...Oh boy
What a dream

[Yes, But Still...]

Interesting idea--this thought exercise definitely puts one in the right mindset for optimizing happiness!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yes, But Still...
'adventures in life optimization'

[Maryann]

I don't know about anyone else, but I can't open that link to your friend's tribute to his wife.

And I adore Groundhog Day (the movie). It is to me the perfect step-by-step metaphor for going from unconscious misery to effortless happiness. Lots of pain along the way, but worth it.

[Paul Maurice Martin]

Those days that it's possible to make into good days on purpose are wonderful and we should probably all build more of them into our lives.

At the same time, I think my most memorable days were rarely if ever planned for - like the time I went jogging at the beach and "bonded" with the perfect jogging dog. Just happened to find me and knew to stay a nice distance, yet accompanied me all the way to the end of the beach. When we got to my car I gave him a ride back to his neighborhood!

[HuntGrunt]

Gretchen, you need to fix the link to Mike and Carol.

That is so tremendously sad. Being widowed too early is maybe the saddest thing in the world. They sound like they were wonderfully happy together.

[Jayaraman]

My favorite day would be when the family is a team. It would consist of

1. Me brewing perfect coffee
2. All of us exercising together
3. I teach my son some thing new and which is not in a text book.
4. I do not leave wet towels on my wife's clothes so that she does not get peeved
5. Making lunch together
6. Catching a great movie which even kids can see
7. Play UNO card and have mock championships and joke all the time
8. Call parents at both our side
9. Eat out at a neighbor hood restaurant with friends

[Steve Williams]

I suppose I don't want to relive any day but would prefer to live the one unfolding before me. Talk of perfect days makes me nervous -- I fear that they devalue all the others that are miracles themselves regardless of circumstance.

There are certainly things I look forward to doing like spending a late fall week in Ogunquit, Maine with my wife prowling the beach and coastline with nothing more on my mind than being there. Or riding my Vespa scooter alone through the central Pennsylvania forests without plans or destinations. But I don't want to relive any of them. I just want to see what is going to happen next, what's over the next hill...

If you forced me to confess something I would want to live over again it would probably be a chance to pat the heads of some of the dogs in my life that are now gone.

Steve Williams
Scooter in the Sticks
http://vespalx150.blogspot.com

[Gretchen Rubin]

So sorry about the bad link -- it's fixed now.

[Felicia Mitchell]

I'm wondering if each day that I live is simply living the same day over and over: the day (the self) as anagram.

Perhaps the perfect day for me is a day with possibility.

If I had to pick a particular day to live over, it would be some particularly sad day: and I would get it right. Perhaps that's what I like about day as anagram: the way we get better and better (ideally) at structuring the narratives that we compose to make sense of our lives (which leads to a sort of happiness).

[Cynthia Wilde]

This post brought to mind a conversation I had with my daughter when she was seven years old. We had gone shoe shopping for her, eaten lunch out, picked out some great projects at the craft store, dropped off flowers for a friend and had a peek at her new baby girl. As we were driving home, my daughter said "This is the best happy day I ever had, Mom!" I was pleased that the unusual amount of time we spent together that day had been so special to her, but just to tease her, I asked, "Before today happened, which day was your best happy day?" Without hesitation she answered, "Oh, it was yesterday!"

She lives entirely in the present moment, and she is a master of being happy. No wonder every day is her perfect day! :)

[Kate]

I watched Groundhog Day last night, as I do every February 2. Besides making me laugh, that movie shows the power of generosity and kindness. But most of all, authenticity and living in the day are the key to happiness. This message was comforting after yesterday's news that my employer is laying off 7,000.

[from the desk of...me]

i watched this movie for the first time about a month ago and began to think what day would i want to relive. currently, i think i would love to relive my first day of college because it was such a time of innocence.

[Ashely]

You know, I just had a part of my perfect day right now. Talking with people about TV for an hour, spontaneous thoughts and a love for creativity is pure heaven for me. Not to mention learning about it. That's what makes me happy and I'm so happy I focused my career path in that direction where I'm excited about where my future lies and the possibilities.

[Daria]

when I went back to art school a bunch of us
students roomed in a large run down old house by
the park. We aptly named our abode, Villa Deprava :)
Such a bunch of characters we were.

I remember us running up and down the stairs dancing
and singing with the record player blaring Bruce Springsteen's
'Baby we were born to run'. And I distinctly remember saying
'THESE are the best days of my life'.

[Jeff Baas]

I don't know that I would choose any particular day or any particular set of activities to relive.

The beauty of the film "Groundhog Day" is in what the main character learned from it. At first, he relived each day strictly for himself, using his knowledge of events to make things turn out better for him.

Invariably, that only made his day worse and made him more depressed. It was only when he despaired of making things better for himself and tried to make things better for others that he saw a change for the better in his days.

I think that any day I could relive in which I made a difference for others would be one well worth reliving.

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