Living Life Like a Man of La Mancha

I had recorded Man of La Mancha for Barb and I to watch when we had time. We sat down and watched it today.

It has been over 20-years since I've seen the movie. I only remembered that I liked it a lot. And of course I remembered that it involved a crazy Don Quixote chasing windmills.

I still liked the movie every bit as I remembered. And I think I know why.

In the middle of the movie Don Quixote (Peter O'toole) asks, "Is it crazy to live life as it is, or to live life as it should be?"

This has always been a mantra I've lived life by unconsciously. I've never been satisfied just to live life as expected, but as I've thought best. Sometimes that may have taken me "outside the lines," or raised eyebrows. Sometimes that meant I took a longer, harder road. Sometimes that has made people think, like they did of Don Quixote, that I must be quite mad.

But if a manager asked me to take shortcuts on a job to increase profits and I ignored him and produced a quality job nonetheless - that was me living life the way I thought it should be.

If a professor gave me a "C" because I refused to go out on a date with her, although I easily earned an "A" - that was me living the life the way I thought it should be.

It's a great movie. Please take a chance to see it when you can.

To dream the impossible dream,
To fight the unbeatable foe,
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go;
To right the unrightable wrong.

To love, pure and chaste, from afar,
To try, when your arms are too weary,
To reach the unreachable star!

This is my Quest to follow that star,
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far,
To fight for the right
Without question or pause,
To be willing to march into hell
For a heavenly cause!

And I know, if I'll only be true
To this glorious Quest,
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest.

And the world will be better for this,
That one man, scorned and covered with scars,
Still strove, with his last ounce of courage,
To reach the unreachable stars!