I’m a guy in my thirties so why would I discuss a Disney animated feature from last year marketed (if you buy into the whole “gender roles” thing) mostly to young girls?  Because I think it actually has a lot of very good messages that apply to everyone.  It may have just hit me at the right time, but it really did strike me as a having very positive philosophic message and I picked my favorites.  Since it has a wintry atmosphere it felt like the right season!

1.) Conceal it Don’t Feel it: A lot of us have found ourselves in environments where repression was favored over personal expression.  As the film, and life, have shown that kind of thinking only leads to temporary containment and eventual explosion of bottled up emotion.  These releases can be positive or negative…so it’s better to live with and as you truly are.  The people who truly care about you will understand.

2.) Nothing’s in My Way: A number of times over the past few years I’ve felt that “waiting for the right time” or the “perfect moment” was the best thing I could do.  Keeping the status quo until everything was just so would yield the best results.  Only very recently I realized there is no perfect moment.  And the only thing in the way of my progress was me.  So for the first time in forever I’ve really felt like nothing’s in my way.  And that’s true for most of us.

3.) Let it Go:  The most important message I think of the film.  We all linger on what could have been, stew over how we were wronged, and lament over what we’ve lost.  Spend too much time looking back and you’ll never see what you have here, and now.  All that stuff is a burden and a weight to carry.  Use it, learn from it, but once we’ve used it…let it go…and make room for something new.

4.) People Don’t Really Change:  Though it’s mentioned in a song about love I find this to be true in all human interactions.  Though the details of a person may change their foundations never do.  Honorable people generally stay honorable, scoundrels stay scoundrels.  Loyal people are loyal to the end and bastards always seek their moment to be bastardy.  And it may sound strange but I firmly believe that we can have all these kinds of people as friends, even the worst of the worst, as long as we fully understand who and what they are.  Trying to change that chaotic evil into lawful good though will result in nothing but agony for both.

and last but not least…

5.) Reindeer are Better than People:  That goes for most animals…they are better than people 😉

This movie really did have an impact on me.  Again it may have been the right story at the right time…but it opened me up to a number of realizations about how I perceive my own life.

From the RevPub Team to all of you, Happy Holidays (or happy lack of holidays for all the non-celebrators out there) we’ll have more new content coming soon and will have even bigger and better stuff coming in the new year!