Lessons on Self Improvement - Labyrinth and Personal Responsibility Part 1
April 30, 2008 | In Lessons on Self Improvement |
Table of contents for Labyrinth Lessons
- Lessons on Self Improvement - Labyrinth and The Power of Friendship Part 1
- Lessons on Self Improvement - Labyrinth and The Power of Friendship Part 2
- Lessons on Self Improvement - Labyrinth and Personal Responsibility Part 1
- Lessons on Self Improvement - Labyrinth and Personal Responsibility Part 2
The movie Labyrinth is very dear to my heart. I love the characters and the adventure. As I wrote last week, I rewatched the movie recently and I could see lots of lessons about self improvement hidden in the fantasy tale. Last week, I wrote about some lessons related to friendships. However, friendship is only one of the themes in the movie. Another major theme is that of personal responsibility.
Self improvement starts with personal responsibility. No one else is going to change us for us; we have to be the ones to change ourselves. When Sarah enters the labyrinth, her attitude is very much one of entitlement. She believes the real world should leave her alone to live in her fantasy world. She is in for a rude awakening when she has to rescue her baby brother, Toby.
1. You have to be take responsibility for your own actions. Sarah was at fault for her brother being kidnapped by the Goblin King. She took responsibility for that, but only after trying to convince the Goblin King that he had misunderstood her. Once she was resolved to navigating the labyrinth, she headed down to the gates. However, she hadn’t shed her tendency to blame others yet.
When Sarah first approached the gates to the labyrinth, she met Hoggle. She asked him if he knew how to get into the labyrinth.
He gave her evasive answers until she said in frustration, “Well, it’s no good asking you anything.”
He replied, “Not if you ask the right questions.”
She thought for a moment and asked, “How do I get into the labyrinth?”
With this, Hoggle showed her the gates. Sarah realized she was asking him to give her the answer, and expecting he would help her just because she deserved it. It was when she took responsibility for needing to enter, that he agreed to show her how.
So many times we do the same thing. We will expect someone else to do for us what we should really do ourselves. Rightfully so, they don’t always do what we want them to do. At the same time, we blame other people for not giving us the answer we want, declaring that the problem is with them, rather than realizing that the problem is with us.
I know I’m guilty of this, especially when it comes to exercise. It’s easy to make excuses: I don’t have anyone to exercise with or I agreed to exercise with someone, but they bowed out or I can’t afford a personal trainer. However, the truth is that I’m the one who needs to exercise, and it’s not someone else’s responsibility to get me to do so.
As Sarah learned, it wasn’t the Goblin King’s or Hoggle’s fault that she needed to navigate the labyrinth. She expected that things would go her way simply because she wanted them to. However, life doesn’t work that way. We have to take responsibility for getting things done, not just expect them to because we want it. When we take responsibility for our actions and not blame others, we will get much farther in life.
2. You can’t take things for granted. Several times throughout the movie, Sarah is reminded that she can’t take anything for granted. She believes that the labyrinth is dark and dank because it appears so on the surface. She takes for granted that the creatures she meets will be evil, like the Goblin King. However, things aren’t always as they seem. For instance, Ludo is big and scary, but he becomes a friend.
She thinks the labyrinth just goes on and on without any openings. However, a friendly worm tells her, “The labyrinth is full of them. It’s just you ain’t looking right.”
She hits a dead end and turns around to retrace her steps and finds someone changed her marks. Then, the dead end (that was behind her) switches and now the dead end is where there was empty path before. Things move all the time in the labyrinth, and not all creatures are scary. She can’t take anything for granted.
We do the same in real life. We take for granted that we will always have our job, even if we don’t like it. We take for granted that we will have the weekend free to do housework. Then we get released from our position, or the car breaks down and spends the weekend in the shop. We make plans and a friend goes into the hospital and we need to be there for them. We can’t just take it for granted that things are going to go the way we want them too, or that it seems like they should. We need to keep an open mind.
Life gives us surprises, just as the labyrinth gave Sarah lots of surprises. Once she was willing to be more open minded, things went much smoother, just as it does for us when we are open to possibilities.
3. Life isn’t always “fair”. Sarah has a big problem with thinking things should be easy and fair. She yells at her stepmother for making her babysit Toby because it’s not fair that she has to babysit “every weekend.” She marks her way in the labyrinth, then gets all bent out of shape when someone changes those marks. Finally, she has a confrontation with Jareth, the Goblin King, and he takes several hours away from her time to make it through.
She yells, “It’s not fair!”
He responds (with one of my favorite lines from the movie), “You say that so often. I wonder what your basis for comparison is?”
The truth is, that life isn’t fair. Rarely do things go the way we think they should. Others get promotions that we “should” have gotten. We have to clean the house more often than our spouse. Kids are always sure that someone got a bigger piece of candy than they did. Whether these things are true or not, life isn’t fair.
When we are kids, our parents teach us to be nice, to share, and to treat everyone equally. Fairness is a great ideal, but like any ideal, doesn’t work out all the time. And, like Sarah, we really don’t have a perfectly fair life to use as a basis for comparison when something goes wrong.
Really, it wasn’t fair that the goblins changed her marks, or that Jareth took away time. However, as she finally realizes, “No, it isn’t [fair], but that’s the way it is.”
When Sarah makes that statement, she has made one of the important changes she makes throughout her adventures. She has stepped up and taken responsibility for her actions and is no longer blaming someone, even if that someone is the world. In the same way, we must take responsibility and stop blaming others for not taking action on changing ourselves. Self improvement isn’t easy, but it doesn’t get any easier if we delay.
Tomorrow, I will present 3 more lessons on personal responsibility that I pulled from the movie. In the meantime, I encourage you to leave me your thougths below in the comments.
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Links to related topics: Being Present, Do Our Best, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Balance, Friends, Healing Past, Labyrinth, Limiting Beliefs, Listening, Passions, Paying Attention, Personal Control, Personal Power, Personal Responsibility, Presenting Ourselves, Self Definition, Taking Action, Taking Notice, True Self, Unconscious Messages, Understanding Ourselves, Values
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