How Disney’s Soul Taught Me to Love Process > The Ending
“I was so involved in the material world and being successful that I missed the point of life — to live.” — original quote from Shreya Badonia’s writing on Soul
I want to mainly focus on how Soul taught me that life is about loving the process. I want to explain my experience with this idea and how this movie made me finally rely on the process > the destination.
For the past few months, it has been brutal. Like a balancing acrobat, the weight of school, possible work opportunities, and finding a summer position on my shoulders tip me before I fall off my tight rope. Mix this with my general anxiety and creeping perfectionism; I’m stressed. I look up from my work in a half-dream state, wondering what my could be, will be. As I draw through an array of my monotonous thoughts, I wake to calendar updates for class. Realizing suddenly in my work that I have gotten nowhere. Even in these tense times, I still focus on then. I replace my worries saying if I work hard, someday I will be there.
My worries didn’t fade away. New expectations suddenly hang over my shoulders, replacing the old weight that hung over my body.
Leading up to Soul, I entertained expectations. Not only am I an avid jazz fan, but I’ve always been interested in each recent movie that Disney produces. Another adventure conducting me to a new realization I didn’t know I needed.
This realization I needed.
Soul starts as I’m sitting back on my bed, watching the movie on my IPad. I’m approached with our main character, Joe Gardner. An avid Jazz musician turned music school teacher, as the movie explains his story, I recognize him. I see the anticipation, almost like you’re waiting for the most delicious pie to finish in the oven. His character had such a spark, and yet his opportunities seemed to fall like wounded soldiers. In the movie, Joe finally got his shot; his anticipation was over, his wounds healed. As my heart grew joyful, it was abruptly slit by a knife of reality, the light died.
As Joe entered the afterlife, I encountered anger in myself. I had waited and experienced a similar joy this character had felt, and yet everything slipped away without any control. Although I’ve never died (obviously) I could feel the pain and anguish of total loss. Entering the afterlife, Joe instantly felt he was in the wrong place. He had to find a way home. Joe continued searching in this afterlife and entered an opportunity to see a backseat view of his life. I experienced empathy for Joe. He was searching for an opportunity that he felt never came this way, and his life filled with doubt and missed opportunities. But through these opportunities he saw glimpses of something, it wasn’t passion, but the compassion he gave others. At this point, I dropped my thoughts and continued with the movie.
As the end of the movie came, I surrendered myself to comparisons — something in this movie struck me like a sledgehammer in the chest — What Joe had experienced, I have experienced in my life all too well.
What had struck me like a sledgehammer?
It takes heart, courage, and people to discover your passion.
I’m not talking about the passion you conceived a week ago about being an executive chef, or a real-estate agent, or this prominent designer. You have to set yourself outside of your expectations and the opinions of others. We rely so much on others’ satisfaction and Joe was exploiting this idea that he could be like his father. He expected that when he accomplished this “one thing,” fulfilling his father’s failed wish, Joe could at long last have acceptance and happiness. The one thing he never knew until he had an out-of-body experience, is the values of compassion. He unknowingly valued compassion so much it brought him to his true happiness. I saw glimpses of this genuine compassion when he teaches Connie, the girl who played the trombone. I wasn’t the only one, other characters throughout the movie witnessed this as well. They supported Joe along the way.
Comparing this to myself, I see all too much that I force the idea of an unknown destination. I think that whatever will come next will be better. Even if that’s valid, this hunger I endure for the next will never satisfy me. When I truly feel humbled, I truly feel loved and truly rewarded is when I’m helping others. I think that’s what has drawn me to design most. The ability to support others along the way and the experiences I’ve had to recognize struggle and help connect people to each other people. I’ll continue designing and showing other people my passion, and in the process hopefully inspire them.
If you want to read more about the movie, I thoroughly recommend you check out Shreya Badonia and her interpretation of the movie. She accomplishes a brilliant job explaining the characters and interpritations of how Soul offers it’s story to us are incredible
