Hope in a Box

The complex where I live has a small movie theater and they show movies twice a week for free. One of last week’s movies was The House of Sand and Fog. I haven’t read the book and I knew the plot was depressing so I hesitated a lot but in the end, I went.

I don’t want to give away anything in case you are reading this and still plan to see the movie, but the basic point of the movie is that this woman’s house gets seized because of some mail she never opened and another person buys the house with the intention of selling it at several times the price. The woman wants her house back but the new owner is unwilling to sell it back to the city at the price he bought it at so the two parties both become obsessed with the house which leads to all sorts of unfortunate events and a very sad ending.

Both parties have their reasons for wrapping up large quantities of hope into the house and it affects their point of view so strongly that they can’t see clearly. The movie is an interesting moral dilemma and I don’t want to talk about which side was right because I know that the original novel goes a lot more in depth as far as the backgrounds of each party and their motivations behind wanting the house. What amazed me was how one thing can distort our lives so drastically. No matter how sensible a person is, some weird event can turn the person into an unreasonable being.

We take our hopes and dreams and realize them in a single material thing. Suddenly that one job is the answer to all of our problems. Or that one partner. That one car. The house. That piece of clothing. It’s a must and there are no alternatives. That’s what we’ve been waiting for all along. The fact is, no one thing will ever solve all of our problems and no one thing is the answer to our future happiness. We, as humans, adapt amazingly quickly and what seemed crucial in one moment becomes ordinary the next. As soon as we achieve, or purchase, it, it loses its value. Now we want the next thing. We lose perspective so quickly.

The movie made me want to teach myself that no one thing in life is so important. There are and always will be other alternatives. There’s no one dream man, no one dream job, no one dream house. Sure some jobs are better than others for me and some houses are more to my liking than others. But if I miss out on the one I wanted, there’s always another somewhere else within my reach. There’s no reason to get so caught up in this particular one. None is worth ruining my life over. None is worth losing my sense of self over. I’m all for trying my hardest to get something that I value.

But I think it’s crucial to keep it all in perspective.