Anyway, that's not really the point (still, Zac Efron, WOW). I love movies with real life lesson, and this movie emphasized a problem which I think many people are facing: living in the past. For you comedy-romance buffs who haven't watched it and hate spoilers, I don't recommend you to read this post. So, go see for yourselves first then come back and we'll discuss about it! Oh yeah, this post was supposed to be published yesterday, but something wrong happened and then BAM! The draft's gone. Dammit. I have to start writing all over again, fine.
I'm not good at creating sentences like the ones you'll read on those self-help books. But I totally agree with the message the movie has brought and would like to share this from my point of view. Here's a dialogue between the older Mike (played by Matthew Perry) and the mysterious old janitor while Mike was looking at his old basketball team picture at his school corridor, the one with him as the team captain:
"Mike O'Donnell, high school star, never quite lived up to your potential. Sooner or later you'll all come back to the old school. Stand there and look at the picture of the glory days, wondering ‘what might have been’. Seems to me you guys are living in the past”, the janitor said.
“Well, of course I want to live in the past. It was better there”, Mike replied.
And here’s what Scarlet, Mike’s about-to-divorce wife, said when they argued about Scarlet’s plan to turn their yard into her landscape design showpiece:
“So I spent the last 18 years of my life listening to you whine about all the things you could’ve done without me and I have no right?”
Living in the past, praising the old glory days, longing to have them again, or maybe wished that you took a different path so your life would be much better than what you’re facing right now. “I’m extremely disappointed with my life”, Mike told Scarlet.