I recently watched Good Will Hunting for the first time (yeah I know a little late). It’s your typical "finding myself" dram-edy (drama/comedy) for the young and not-so-hopeless. The idea of sitting through a 2-hour movie didn't really appeal to me so I wasn't totally paying attention until this specific scene. I’m also not one for watching something that may relate to my life as a 21-year-old college kid. Anyway, I ended up liking it, but one part truly stuck out to me. Will (Matt Damon) is talking to his therapist, Sean (Robin Williams), about a girl he's seeing:
Will: Don't worry about me, I know what I'm doing. Yeah, but this girl is like, you know, beautiful. She's smart. She's funny. She's different from most of the girls I've been with.
Sean: So, call her up, Romeo.
Will: Why? So I can realize she's not that smart, that she's f***ing boring? Y'know? I mean... this girl is f***ing perfect right now, I don't wanna ruin that.
Sean: Maybe you're perfect right now. Maybe you don't wanna ruin that. I think that's a super philosophy, Will, that way you can go through your entire life without ever having to really know anybody...
The ending quote that Robin Williams' character says was what caught my attention. I had to rewind to make sure I understood what they were talking about.
When I heard it, it was like the hamster on the wheel started running again. Everything made sense. There are so many people, now more than ever, who believe their lives are perfect just the way they are and the second something ever-so-slightly goes wrong, they bail. Because God forbid there was a bump in the road that needed to be crossed, it could be too much for them to handle.
In relationship circumstances, I can think about the countless times I’d get into an argument and wonder why I wasn’t good enough for them to push through the problem together. But after thinking about that exact sentence, “maybe you’re perfect... and don’t wanna ruin that…” It resonated with me and should remind us that not only should you not close yourself off for your own personal benefit, but also there are so many people that come into your life in order to change it, mostly for the better.
And that’s what bothers me the most about this scene, he’s practically saying who knows what the future could hold. It could be bad, it could be good but I don’t want to take the risk if it turns out bad. All those broken and abandonment fears are going to leave you broken and abandoned. I'm not singling this to only relationships; friendships can be the same exact way. Everyone has dealt with the one-way friendship, where you put in 150% and get maximum 50% in return. I believe this is part of what kids call these days ‘toxic’ (I hate that word) but it’s fitting. People like that who have a funny way of making you feel like you’re not good enough to find a spot in their perfect world, are not who you should be around. It’s a terrible feeling, to be boiled down into a super philosophy.
The whole part of life is to meet different people to figure out who you are and who you want to surround yourself with. It’s the most important thing in my opinion. It’s common sense really. Positive people will keep you happy, negative people won’t and you’ll always regret the negative decisions. Robin Williams’ character then goes on saying he doesn’t regret missing game six for his soon-to-be wife and look where he ended up, happy, for almost two decades.
So basically what I’m trying to say is, if you spend your whole life assuming everyone is imperfect, get yourself a reality check because so are you. You just have to decide who to be imperfect with and you’ll never have a bad day. Oh and Matt Damon gets the girl, obviously.
