"A Serious Man" Is Some Serious Shit

Last night I watched the movie A Serious Man and I thought it was amazing. It really made me think and I love movies that force me to rethink my life and rethink how I approach it.
I really don't want to give too much of the plot away because I want people to watch it. But a lot of bad things happen to Larry the main male character, and he can't seem to catch a break. And one of the interesting things was that the more he sought answers to his question of "why" things were happening to him, the more questions he had. He never found the answer. Why didn't he ever get an answer? Because the answer was too simple for him to realize. Bad things happen because they just do. No matter who you are or what you expect, bad things will happen and there is no way to avoid them.
The best way to expend your energy is not in trying to figure out why bad things happen, but learning how to deal with them. Frustration, stress, and anxiety are counterproductive. And those feelings only make you more open to negative experiences. The most productive thing is to cope with the bad things and move forward. It is all about perception. Things aren't naturally good or bad; we only perceive things as good or bad. I know it totally sounds like an after school special to tell you to use your bad experiences as an opportunity to change but we all should.
We can't keep bad things from happening and it's a waste of our life's energy to try to do that. I believe the Serenity Prayer asks God to help us accept the things we cannot change, change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference. It is a waste of energy and time to attempt to control the things we can't, like the ways of the universe, so we should focus on improving the things we can, like ourselves.
Also, we should have more faith in ourselves. Larry kept seeking answers from others and never found them. Perhaps if he had just took a moment and listened to his own mind, heart, and soul, he would have found answers. We have answers to our own problems but we don't trust ourselves; we don't trust the wisdom and knowledge we have concerning what we need and what is best for us. We allow other people to convince us of what we want and need and don't truly know beyond society's projections. We need to figure it out.
In the movie, Larry had this horribly obnoxious annoying son that was just a pain in the ass. The son would call Larry at work under the guise that it's an emergency, complaining that he couldn't get a certain channel on the television. He went to his own Bah Mitzvah high. Finally at the end he realized what an obnoxious child he was being. At the end, Larry's life was beginning to change and something positive finally happened. As soon as he was beginning to feel some sense of happiness and calm in his life, something destructive became imminent....something bad they couldn't affect. By the time they learned what life was really about, it was too late. We shouldn't do that. We shouldn't waste any time looking outside of ourselves for answers that reside in our own beings.
Despite the slow pace, the movie was extremely insightful. There was one quote that hit me. One character said, "Only I know my own action." On the surface that seems trivial, but at further analysis, it is beautifully complex. How many times do we assume the intentions of others based on their actions? How many times to do we assume a certain behavior is for a specific goal? How many times do we presume to know the motivations for people's behaviors? (I mean, there are professions where people make money claiming to know such things).
We cannot control how others behave, but we can control how we react to their behavior. We can't control what people say, but we can control how much it affects us. We can't control what is brought upon us, but we can control what we bring to the lives of other people. We can't control the universe, but we can control the energy we put into it.
Don't just exist, live. Don't waste time fighting what can't be fought. Don't worry about control...spend time exerting your power. Find your power and use it to positively affect your being and others. Remember who you are beneath the labels, like sister, mother, brother, niece, manager, employee, student, girlfriend, boyfriend, wife, husband, father, writer, artist, nerd, dork, republican, democrat, independent, libertarian, conservative, liberal, musician, singer...whatever the label. Remove yourself from those things meant to put you in a easily manipulated box and just be free. :)