In the movie “Yesterday”, our lead character is a struggling musician in England who gets hit by a bus during a 12 second world wide power outage and wakes in a world with no Beatles, Coke, or Harry Potter. It’s a movie about finding Inspiration, Asking for Help, and Facing Fears/Honesty. With no one knowing anything about the Beatles, he pulls their songs from his memory and rises to fame by being able to remember, play, and record Beatles songs as if they were his own. While the first songs come easy, he has to dig deep for their other songs. Which is where this Trail Tip comes to life.
Inspiration: After the initial easily remembered songs, he looks for inspiration to bring out the emotions and memories to put together the pieces of other Beatles songs. Here he visits: Strawberry Fields, a church and other Beatle inspired locations to get the emotions, which pull out the memories of the songs. In hiking where do you go for your inspirations needed to get you back hiking? Are there favorite trails, overlooks, etc.; from hikes in the past that help you renew your passion for hiking? In your personal life, where do you go when you can’t seem to get it all together? Are there friends, a book, a movie that reminds you of your calling and purpose? Movies like “The Rookie” and “It’s a Wonderful Life” are just two that come to mind for me. At work, what do you do to when you are at a loss for what you can do to get back on track? Are there classes to take, a different assignment, taking a holistic view of everything you have in your job and realizing it better than you think?
Asking for Help. In one scene during the movie, he has a breakdown while singing the song “Help”. Who do you reach out to for help in your: Hiking, Personal, and Work life. In hiking you need people who have gone before you and have done those hikes. A great resource also is 14ers.com which is both a web page and Face Book page. In your personal life, it’s critical to have those life-long friends who can you reach out to for help? [And in the movie, it is a long-time friend that helps him.] At work, do you have mentor or work colleague from over the years? Someone who knows your strengths, successes and challenges you have had to over-come.
Facing Fear/Honesty. In the movie, our character comes across two people who begin to follow him and make hints that they know his secret about how he is writing all these songs. When finally confronted, they too; admit they remember the Beatles, Coke, and Harry Potter. But instead of threatening him, they encourage him to continue playing, which leads him to coming out with how he came up with all the songs, and of course, also winning back his girlfriend. What are your fears and what honesty do you need to face in your in your Hiking, Personal, and Work Life? For me: a lot of these fears center around thinking: I’m not fast enough on trails with others, I’m going to make wrong or bad decisions in my personal life, or I’m not smart enough at work. All self-talk defeating thinking; which is not true. Facing our Fears and being honest; isn’t easy to do, but by “Asking for Help”, we can begin this journey of not living in fear and walking in honesty with ourselves and those around us.
Going to see Yesterday, has rekindled my passion for writing and has taken me back to my dreams of what these Trail Tips can provide: inspiration for your journeys on the Trail, Personal, and Work Life. Where are you today? Are you needing: Inspiration, Help, or the ability to Face the Fears in your life? It starts with asking for help and having someone in your life to help you. Or as the Beatles put it:
Help me if you can I’m feeling down
And I do appreciate you being round
Help me get my feet back on the ground
Won’t you please please help me
Al Andersen 