Yesterday, I went to see a movie that I’ve been anticipating for a long time: "Finding Dory." Right before the movie started, I was sitting in the movie theater complaining to my boyfriend about how angry I get when events aren’t planned enough in advanced, when people aren’t on time and about how impulsive some people are. As a person who likes everything planned, scheduled and expected, this is something that drives me particularly insane. As the lights dimmed and the movie started, I quieted my complaints to pay attention to the movie, still feeling the post-rant flare of anger in my chest.
Dory is a very impulsive fish who suffers from short-term memory loss. As a result, she often doesn’t make plans, since she would forget them. She is not analytical, unlike her character foil, Marlin, who is more of a planner and analyzer like me. She normally acts on instinct or pure whim, never devising a clear plan or thinking ahead, much like the type of people that irritate me in my own life.
Although Dory’s lifestyle is not similar to my personal lifestyle choices, by the end of the movie, I realized there is a message in her whimsical, impulsive behavior. For people (or fish) that are like me and Marlin, we want to have structure in our daily lives. We want to have a predetermined plan for everything we are going to do and when we are going to do it. We find security in routine, and we feel less stressed with a schedule. We get annoyed when people are late and when plans are made, changed or cancelled at the last minute. But it’s not just in our everyday lives. We want our entire lives to be planned. There is value placed in having a whole plan for your education and future career path by the time you select a college your senior year of high school. We live in a society where everyone is expected to go to college, earn a degree in four years and then start a career or move onto graduate or professional school.
Although this is the path that I have chosen, I realize that this isn’t for everyone. Dory is not the type of fish to follow the conventional pathway. What I learned from "Finding Dory," is that there is more than one way to do everything. Not everyone is the type of person who needs a big plan for their life. Some people need to feel it out as they go. We can use words with negative connotation such as “impulsive” to describe this personality, but words like “instinctive,” “intuitive” or “spontaneous” are better. It’s okay to not have a plan. It’s okay if you don’t want to go to college, or if it’s not for you. Society makes everyone feel like it’s the only logical step after high school, but that’s not true at all. As my mom always says, “there is more than one way to skin a cat”. There is more than one way to approach life and careers.
What Dory taught me was to be more accepting of and less angry with people who aren’t like me. Some people feel safe when they have a plan, and others feel more secure trusting their own intuition and feeling it out as they go. By the end of the movie, my anger was gone, and I actually felt a little guilty about my pre-movie rant. It’s not fair of me to expect everyone to be just like me. I’m sure some people get annoyed with my constant planning and need to be in control, just like Dory gets impatient with Marlin. I realize that life throws curve balls and I can’t plan everything. Sometimes there isn’t time to think and analyze all of the options before a quick decision has to be made. So thank you, Dory, for showing me that it’s okay to not have a plan, and that sometimes you just have to ride the undertow, follow your own shell path, and let life take you where you need to go.
