Chaos mathematicians have studied a phenomena called "the butterfly effect", in which a single butterfly flapping its wings can cause tremendous shifts of weather half a world away. The unpredictable effects of a relatively minor change are also explored in a movie called “Sliding Doors”, which shows how a seemingly insignificant event can have drastic effects.
People always wonder how their lives would have turned out if a few things had gone differently.
We tend to focus on the big events. What if I hadn't gotten married? What if I had taken this job or that one.
"Sliding Doors" explores how a seemingly insignificant event can change a life.
Helen is a public relations executive whose life is starting to fall apart on one fateful day. She just lost her job, and, on her way back home, she narrowly misses catching her train in the London underground...or does she.
But wait! The film backs up about 30 seconds, starts over and this time Helen slips aboard the train just as the doors slide shut.
At this point, the movie splits in two, alternating back and forth between two different worlds: one in which Helen caught the train, and the other in which she narrowly missed it. It's one minor difference, but the effects spiral away in completely different directions.
In the world where she catches the train, she meets a talkative Scotsman, James. She arrives home in time to catch her boyfriend, Gerry, in the middle of an affair with another woman Lydia. Yet, as traumatic as this seems at first, it makes her a stronger woman, as she pursues a new career, and a new life with a new love, James.
Bad luck continues for the Helen that missed the train. She decides to catch a cab instead and is immediately mugged. She arrives shortly after Lydia leaves and doesn't realize Gerry is having an affair.
So one Helen storms out of the flat and begins a romance with the charming James, while the other Helen continues to be two-timed by Gerry. The Helen who caught the train also bleaches her hair so the audience can tell them apart.
From time to time, Helen's parallel lives threaten to intersect. Blonde Helen enters a restaurant shortly after brunette Helen exits. During a bar scene James alternates between flirting with Helen and ignoring her, depending on which version we're seeing at the moment.
Each time I feel I’m in crossroads, and I’m about to make a lifetime decisions. I remember that movie. It makes me realize that it’s not these decisions that I think are major are the decisions which is gonna shape my life. Rather, it’s these minor events and decisions that might turn our lives upside down.
I learnt that I shouldn’t worry that much when it’s time for decisions. I shouldn’t be giving it all that second and third thought. “Think it for once and shoot” that’s what I always tell myself.
But did I learn the lesson?! Seems I didn’t. Instead of worrying about major decisions, I started thinking of every single thing I do, or anything I say. I realized that every single moment that we live is a major decisive moment in our lives.
After I watched the movie "Sliding Doors," I watched it over and over again. Each time something new caught my eye because all the simple things make the biggest differences. In the one life because everything goes "wrong" for her she winds up meeting James, a man who's everything she didn't know she was looking for but in the other life where she makes the train she stays with her boyfriend who's everything she thinks she wants. It makes you wonder how much of your life is running in parallel lines waiting for one small decision to completely alter it. Why is it that everyday we can pass people by on the street without giving them a second glance but then seemingly out of nowhere a simple picture of someone sets off firecrackers in your chest. Is it because fate is pushing you to see something so that her sister destiny can follow out her plan or is it something even deeper then that? Have we lived these lives before and our souls are Earth bound and tied to each other waiting to play out things that did not get fulfilled in our previous lives? Could that be the explanation for why you can look in someone's eyes and feel like you've known them forever? Is that the reason why events repeat themselves in our lives because they are important and it's important it happens in the right way?
As I now settle with Maria...I was thinking about all the other woman I have met and how my other life...would have been. But then again...Nothing happens my accident.
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