The other night as all my friends got ready to go out, I decided to stay in and watch movies. Alice in Wonderland has always been on my list to watch, I just have never come around to watch it for some reason. I watched Alice In Wonderland, the first one and I also watched Alice Through The Looking Glass, the second one. I am honestly pretty mad at myself for having never watched them before. Not only do they have awesome effects, costumes, imagery, and Johnny Depp who is the best anyways, but they teach some pretty cool life lessons that I had never heard of before. So, if you're like me and have never watched the movie, then I highly recommend you watch it, but until you do, here are some of the life lessons that stood out to me from the movie.
"We're all mad here."- Cheshire Cat
Cheshire tells us that everybody has a little bit of 'mad' in them, meaning that everybody is a little bit crazy at some point in their life. This means that everybody has little quirks that make them who they are that others may view as 'bonkers', and that is completely normal.
"You're not the same as you were before. You used to be much more muchier. You've lost your muchness." -Mad Hatter
The Mad Hatter is my favorite character in the movie. He tells us that at some point everybody loses their "muchness". This means that yes, it is normal to lose your muchness every now and then, but you have to remember that you have to find it again at some point. Instead of thinking about all the negative things that have happened lately, you have to remember that these bad things do not define who you are.
"Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." -Alice
Alice is an adventurer and a dreamer. She is always seeking to do the opposite of what the normal is and she is always dreaming of unimaginable things. Alice does not like the word "impossible". While to others, the things that she dreams of might seem absurd or simply impossible to them, Alice proves them wrong and makes her impractical dreams a reality.
"I can't go back to yesterday, I was a different person then." -Alice
Alice tells us that we are constantly changing as people. Yes, everybody has made mistakes in the past, but you shouldn't be burdened by them. We are different today than we were yesterday and we will be different tomorrow than we are today. Whether you choose to make that person better or worse is up to you.
"If you don't know where you are going, any road can take you there." -Cheshire Cat
Cheshire tells us that just because you are wandering does not mean you are lost. Sometimes people have no idea where they are going, and this is completely okay. Therefore, since you do not have an idea of where you wish to end up, then it doesn't matter what road you take, because you'll end up somewhere you want to be eventually.
"You can always paint the roses red." -Alice
Throughout the movie, both Lady Ascot and The Red Queen point out that somebody has painted white roses in the garden and they asked for red. Both times Alice says that they could always just paint the roses red. Both of them reply back to her by this "what an odd thing to say". This is my absolute favorite quote in the movie. It says that its okay to think odd off-the-wall things. Everybody has a different way of thinking and everybody can come to the same conclusion, just in different ways. It shows that everybody has their own personality and being different or thinking differently than everyone else is okay.
"It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place." -The Red Queen
The moral of this is to stop doing things that get us nowhere. Often times everyone complains about wanting to make something better but they get caught up in a circle that keeps on going and they get nowhere. Sometimes it seems easier to keep doing what you've been doing because it is comfortable, however we have to learn to break out of our comfort zone and do something that betters us as a person.
"You cannot live your life to please others, the choice must be yours." -The White Queen
To me, this seems more self explanatory. One simply cannot live their life to make others happy. You should do what makes you happy as a person, because in the end it is your life and you have to deal with whatever comes with the choices you make.
"Sometimes forever is just one second."- The White Rabbit
Time is a relative concept, especially in Wonderland. The difference in time between then and now or a second and a day cannot be touched. This means that a moment can last forever if experienced with your whole being, but in the same context it may take years to realize that you've spent your time in the worst way possible. The best way to take advantage of our time is to experience what is happening right now and be appreciative of this very moment to make it seem like it lasts forever.
