Some people believe this date, 12/12/12, according to the Mayan calendar, is significant. Perhaps it signifies the end of the world, or a major global shift in consciousness to a higher level. Some think it signifies nothing.
But for many couples wanting to get married, this date is considered lucky. One survey indicates a 1,446 percent increase in weddings on 12/12/12, versus 12/12/11. Several states prepared for a rush on weddings on this day, including Los Angeles. The county clerk’s office expanded hours so people could apply online for licenses ahead of time.
This stimulated my thinking about a film I saw recently..."Take This Waltz," starring Michelle Williams and Seth Rogen. They’ve been happily and even lovingly married for five years and yet Michelle’s character, Margot, is dissatisfied. Life with husband, Lou, has become ordinary. There is a resigned acceptance, a bland familiarity, in the relationship. When she develops an intense, immediate and mutual chemistry with an attractive new neighbor, Daniel, her marriage falls apart.
Another character tries to warn her: “New things get old.” And, “Life has a gap in it...It just does. You don’t go crazy trying to fill it.”
And that’s what happens. She tries to fill the void, to find excitement and passion, and when that wears off, when the new becomes old, when the gap isn’t filled--her new relationship mirrors her former marriage. She remains discontented.
I wondered, is this Divine Discontent? Is she suppressing a fountain of energy, which if released, could move her toward her full potential, to achieve a major creative breakthrough, rather than sink into boredom or unhappiness?
None of the characters have a spiritual life, and only Rogen’s Lou is pursuing his dream to become a successful cookbook writer. He finds joy in the marriage and in his work as a chef, experimenting on chicken recipes. Margot and Daniel are both unfulfilled in their creative lives...Margot aspires to be a writer but is bored writing travel brochures; Daniel aspires to be an artist, is afraid to exhibit his work and works as a rickshaw driver.
Their divine discontent is suppressed, and manifests as erotic fantasies and games, a broken marriage and eventually another ordinary relationship.
This stimulated me to think about my own marriage...how did I manage to stay married for 43 years, until my husband made his transition? Yes there was entropy, especially as we grew older. Yes, there was an ordinary quality to life after those early years of wild passion. There was the arrival of children and a definite shift to love, not just being “in love.”
Forty-three years is a long time. What's my secret to a successful marriage? I call it the 80% Solution. It helps to choose well...someone who you not only love but like and respect, have common interests and values, and communicate well together. That enables you to be 80% on the same page as you go through the ups and downs of life together.
The other 20% are the challenges, the hard choices, the temptations and how you handle them. Someone can have lust in his or her heart, but acting on it is something else. Or if acted out, can it be forgiven? Or worked on? And more importantly, at least for me, is not to be joined at the hip in everything--that each person in the relationship has separate and rewarding interests and activities. This allows us to grow toward our full potential, to tap into any divine discontent and use that productive source of energy to bolster our mutual peace, joy and happiness.
By the end of the film, "Take This Waltz," Margot is seen alone riding a carousel, possibly lost in fantasy. All the characters are sympathetic. I could empathize yet know that different choices could have led to a happier outcome for all.
As Ernest Holmes says: “We cannot live a choiceless life. Every day, every moment, every second, there is choice If it were not so, we would not be individuals.” There is “not only the possibility of choice; but the liability of experiencing that which is chosen.”
And so it is.
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