From the day we’re born up until the day we die we’re on a journey. It starts the moment we are conceived. Whether it’s emotional or physical does not matter, those two aspects may help the directions we take. It may not be evident to anyone, a silent battle being fought within our minds. Or it could be clear to everyone, like moving to a new place. Journeys take many forms. Good forms such as when we’re young and we learn to tie our shoelaces, a life skill that we end up dependant on. Or bad forms, somewhere along the lines we may fall ill to a life threatening disease like cancer. Sometimes our Journeys can cause us pain and heartbreak, but those are the things that help us make decisions and move forward, our journeys make us who we are.
As soon as we are born we begin our journey. We’re thrust into life without knowing anything but are eventually taught the life skills we need. We are taught how to walk, talk and make the right choices, all very important aspects within our lives. In turn the skills we are taught help us move forward meaning we can learn new things. These new skills help shape the decisions we choose to make. If we didn’t have these skills moving forward would be difficult. Our physical journeys would be a struggle if we weren’t able to talk and our emotional ones would be unhappy if we weren’t able to communicate.
In the film look both ways many of the characters are forced to make changes in their lives after going through different eye-opening experiences. It’s the experiences we go through that really help move our journeys forward. They change our outlook on life. Whether they are good or bad they make us think and change the way we do things. For example fighting an illness, we can choose to give up or we can choose to fight. Whichever one we choose it will change our life. We can give up and end our journey or we can fight and live on. There will always be a time when something comes up, causing us to re-assess our situations.
Everyone can go through something major in their life. It could be winning an award, causing fame or choosing to change your religion. A choice that could change the way you look at everything. Sometimes even the negative things that happen to us can cause enlightenment. For example Kim Phuc ‘the napalm girl’ she always felt anger and hatred towards the American’s who had bombed her village, but after meeting one of the men and a long period of time she grew to forgive them. For the man who had bombed her village it was a journey as well. He was sorry for what he had done, he hadn’t wanted to hurt Kim or her family. The whole situation changed the way he thought about thing.
Journeys, to put it simply are what makes us who we are. They teach us the things we need to know in order for us to move forward. The experiences we have while we are on them determine the paths we want to take. The events they entail help us change our outlook on life and the way we think about things. Everything that happens within a journey helps it keep going, all link with one and other making the course either smooth or bumpy. Literally everything we say or do is a contribution towards it. They aren’t always amazing and they aren’t always terrible. Our journeys are all different and they don’t stop for anything or anyone until it’s time. The only way our journey can end is if we die. The moment we pass on is the moment our journey concludes.