Tilting the Windmills? No. Go with Happiness...

Just then they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that rise from that plain. And no sooner did Don Quixote see them that he said to his squire, "Fortune is guiding our affairs better than we ourselves could have wished. Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay them. With their spoils we shall begin to be rich for this is a righteous war and the removal of so foul a brood from off the face of the earth is a service God will bless."

"What giants?" asked Sancho Panza.

"Those you see over there," replied his master, "with their long arms. Some of them have arms well nigh two leagues in length."

"Take care, sir," cried Sancho. "Those over there are not giants but windmills. Those things that seem to be their arms are sails which, when they are whirled around by the wind, turn the millstone."

-Don Quixote

Tonight Sarah and I watched a movie entitled, Music Within.

It tells the story of Richard Pimental (Ron Livingston), a man who receives severe hearing damage in the Vietnam War and comes back only to realize the few/nonexistent opportunities are available to disabled individuals. This rude awakening, paired with the eye-opening friendship with Art Honeyman (Michael Sheen), a viable genius living with cerebal palsy, takes him on a journey that would forever change the lives of people everywhere living with disabilities.

I suppose the part that really got me about this movie was the discussion of the text from Don Quixote and the phrase "tilting the windmill." This phrase indicates attacking unseen enemies, or proceeding to take on a task that cannot be completed...as Don Quixote did when he attempted to attack the windmills in that famous literary scene.

I wonder sometimes how many of us are attacking windmills, or rather, seem to have lost the battle. And yes, I am talking about myself, but taking myself out of it...are we still battling windmills? Are we seeing huge obstacles that are not there, seeing things that are not dangerous and thinking they are some huge threat?

I guess it seems that when you get in place and realize how difficult it will be to pull yourself out of it, yet how easy it was to sink into it, you wonder if your negative perspective is making the goal look more unattainable than it actually is. Are there just simple steps to reaching the goal, but are the simple steps so numerous that the stairway disappears far above our heads?

Maybe we need to step back and realize these giants we see above our heads are nothing but windmills, huge and cumbersome, and easily bypassed for what they are, not huge menacing beasts out to get us.

Maybe we should be less like Don Quixote and follow the words of Glen Hansard, "If you've got to go, go with Happiness..." Granted this is a love song. But if we gave up the thoughts of everything being a battle, and slowly fixated on the happy things, I feel sure that we would eventually bypass the windmills with no problem. Of course, as I write this I'm talking mainly to myself...but I think if most people at least tried to think this way, in the end, the world would be somewhat of a more happy place filled with more smiling faces...