The Best, Exotic....Life

I was writing on another topic this week but switched gears after watching "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel".  I dragged my husband to it (and I do mean drag), but he owed me a "chick flick" after all the manly movies I have endured.  He lived.  It is a stunning, gorgeous film that added a trip to India to my bucket list.  (I was already headed to Nepal to trek in the Himalayas, so might as well stop by then.)


On rare occasions, movies hit you with the right message at the right time and this was one of those times.  It is about 7 men and women who are in their golden years, all of whom are at crossroads in their lives for one reason or another.  They are looking for a new beginning, medical treatment, closure to the past, new companions, cheaper retirement living or the chance to see and experience something different.  They all found their way to India and the The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.  They also found it wasn't quite as the brochures advertised.  That's where the real story began.


I loved all of the characters but two in particular caught my attention:  Evelyn (Judi Dench) and Jean (Penelope Wilton).  Evelyn was recently widowed and has discovered that she will not be left much as her husband had a lot of debt.  She doesn't want to move in with her children and sees India as a cheaper, fresh option.  Jean and her husband Douglas (Bill Nighy-adore him) have loaned their retirement income to their daughter and are hoping for a payback but are unsure they will get it.  India appeared to be a cheaper, nicer option for senior living.


So amid dust, disrepair, a "third-world" country, different food, different culture, and being a minority, it is sink or swim, thrive and live or shrink and die.  Long story short, Evelyn gets a job, walks doesn't ride, explores, learns, adapts, cries, laughs and finds herself happy and content in her new and different circumstances.  Jean, on the other hand does none of that.  She complains, treats people poorly, sees nothing but the bad, refuses to embrace anything new or even leave the hotel, and longs for the comfortable past and the comfortably planned future.  She ends up with her money back, headed back to England in first class to her comfort zone, but leaves without her husband and all of her time there wasted.


I found it an interesting exercise to put myself in that situation, especially at that stage of life.  Try it.  What would you do if your were dumped off in a strange, new place and had to live.  Would you excel?  Would you quit?  Would you try?  Imagine if you succeeded, what would you have gained.   


Of course you are saying "I don't have to get dumped in a foreign country necessarily, to learn like that."  And that's right.  Birth, starting school, graduation, college, parenthood, jobs, new locations, marriage, divorce, deaths:  all can provide the same foundation for learning.  It's what you do with the opportunity and how you move out of the comfort zone.  It's how much you grew as an individual and how many others you helped a long the way.  Imagine the expansion of life, and the fullness and joy of experience if you seized all of those uncomfortable, learning moments and conquered them.  What a blessing in the end that would be not to have lived a myopic life, but to have vision of the grand scheme and your place in it.  I think that's what deathbed contentment might feel like.


My favorite quote from the movie comes from the ever positive, optimistic owner/manager of the hotel Sonny, who continually tells his guests:

Everything will be all right in the end.  So, if it is not all right, it is not yet the end.

I would highly recommend watching the movie.  I will probably get some texts saying, "Are you kidding me? Slowest, most boring movie ever."  That's ok, probably just weren't ready for the message.  Just out of curiosity, you may want to ask yourself why.  As for me, I'm resolving to pack my bag everyday in search of the wonder, lessons, and fulfillment called life.  Later Mates!