Imagine being trapped in a time loop, day after day you wake up to Sunny and Cher on the radio, no hot water in your shower, and it is Groundhog’s Day. No matter what you do or how you live you are stuck living the same day over and over again. Phil Conners, played by Bill Murray, finds himself in this exact, but also ridiculous plot in the movie “Groundhog Day”. While living February 2nd day after day, he goes through a range of emotions eventually coming to a place of deep despair leading to countless attempts of suicide, only to wake up the next morning to do it all over again. Phil is stuck, in a town he doesn’t like with people that annoy him and the one person he’s interested in, Rita, won’t reciprocate love for him despite trying to curate the perfect date. Phil is ultimately trapped, with no explanation of why this is happening to him or a way out. At this point in the movie Phil truly is living as a victim, but one mostly of his own making. While in this state he is quick to blame others for his problems, he doesn’t have any meaningful relationships but simply uses people to get what he wants. Phil, however does not stay a victim for the whole movie, otherwise it would be a pretty terrible movie. But while in that stage of character there is no growth in his character, he learns about Rita only to try and sleep with her, not because he cares about others. A good story can’t have a victim as the main protagonist for the entire plot because a victim does not take up the challenge put before them, “a victim gives up because they have come to believe they are doomed” Miller points out. The victim is helpless and often like a hero weak and uncertain, but they don’t feel like they can or want to make the choices necessary to change.
It should be noted that there are real victims in the world, abused, confined, violated by wicked in real life. And to this we acknowledge the challenge to continue living in those awful circumstances, and the need for others to come alongside and help, save, or rescue you. But that does not preclude you from being able to be heroic in whatever context you find yourself in. In fact, victims often become some of the most powerful heroes, because their background stories. Their experiences allow them to empathize with others in deep and powerful fashion. How many countless stories are there of former addicts helping others get clean and sober, or people involved various forms of slavery and human trafficking once freed working to help those still trapped get free. How many therapists are there who have had to do hard work to heal from their own mental health disorders only to want to help others in their healing journey?
Then there are those who see themselves as victims, as people who have had control over their lives’ taken from them and they can’t get it back. Miller notes “[w]hen we look at a perfectly capable person who sadly sees themselves as a victim, there’s a temptation to judge them for not having discipline. But discipline isn’t their problem. Their problem is in their identity. They do not know they have heroic energy within them.” This is fundamental issue that victims have, they do not know who they can become, they don’t know what is truly inside of them. And to be fair, often heroes don’t know this either, not at least at first. Luke Skywalker doesn’t know he’s the son of Jedi with powers of the Force, nor does Frodo Baggins know he has the courage and character it takes to endure the temptation of the Ring of Power. The point is that victims and heroes are often very similar at the start of the story, but where heroes transform, victims remain the same. They are often disconnected from others, whether physically locked up in a tower, or emotionally guarded and distant, focusing on what is not in their control and lamenting that things should be different. In reflecting on his own life and time identifying as a victim, Miller states, “[t]hinking of myself as a victim offered me one thing that a heroic mindset couldn’t provide: an excuse.” Victims continue to come up for reasons why they aren’t different, why change is too hard or it won’t work, or maybe the journey just isn’t worth it and so they stay the same. They do this because they do not do what the hero does, they do not redeem their past pain.
There is a peculiar story from the Bible, where Jesus encounters a man who had been crippled for 38 years. Jesus asks the man, “Do you want to be healed?” (John 5:6). Now on the face of it this is an obvious question, why wouldn’t he want to be healed? Of course! But what Jesus’ question inquires to a deeper internal state, an account of the man’s identity in which he has been identified by his malady for 38 years. In order to be healed or set free, the man’s identity and self-understanding must be radically transformed. He can’t simultaneously still be a victim a cripple and be healed and healthy. It’s one or the other. I’ve known more than a few people, who for one reason or another despite being miserable as a victim choose to hold on to that identity rather than take responsibility and transform. Candidly, I look at my own life and seasons where I wasn’t happy with the way things were going for me, and it was so easy and to focus on all the reasons I couldn’t have the life I wanted, all of which felt out of my control. I felt helpless, I felt stuck, I felt threatened and weak, and I also didn’t know what to do about it. Maybe you feel that way, that outside forces have altered your life trajectory, taken things away from you unexpectedly, and you don’t know what to do now. The pivot point for Phil Conners in Groundhog Day isn’t that magically breaks the time loop, finds a hidden airplane to fly him away, or a someone rescues him. What begins to change is Phil, he begins to take a genuine interest in those around him, he sees this small town not as beneath him, but full of life, and opportunity to make a difference for those around him. Only after he accepts life on its own terms and shifts his mentality from being stuck in a place he doesn’t want to be, into a place of opportunity, and begins caring about other people does he change and the time loop is broken. If you feel stuck and you feel like life is out of your control, and you don’t know what to do, maybe start investing in someone else, make someone else’s life better. Take a genuine interest and care in those around you. Use your pain as the guide to find others who are suffering too and work to help alleviate their pain. In helping others through their pain, you often redeem your own.