There’s a one-screen movie theater in Boothbay Harbor I used to enjoy going to by myself in the winter. Mostly for the popcorn. Well, mostly for the butter. Real butter, kept warm in a little crockpot behind the cashier. It was so good that occasionally I would go in while a movie was playing, buy a popcorn, and take it home.
Usually I bought a ticket and watched a movie. During one I found particularly boring, I got up to use the restroom and had a realization: I can just, like, leave. I don’t have to finish this. I can walk out the door, get in my truck, and go home.
So I did.
It felt surprisingly liberating. I didn’t care about the seven bucks I’d spent on the ticket. My only regret was that I hadn’t gotten a popcorn for the road.
I had a similar moment with a backyard stone project the other day.
There was no client involved. Just me playing with a new design for a stone form I wanted to build. Something that would really challenge me. As I wrestled with the form, I slowly realized I’d overdone it. To build it with the materials I had on hand, I’d have to melt the rocks to get them to do what I wanted. Without any ancient aliens around to show me how to do that, I modified the design and started building again. Almost immediately, I got bored. Now it was too easy, and that defeated the whole point of the project.
Then I had that old movie-theater realization: I can just, like, stop.
So I did.
We have a movie theater in Bantam that does the same thing with their popcorn. So I totally understand going for the popcorn.
I think the other factor that affects us is the older we get. We give ourselves permission to stop, when we were young we thought it said more about our seriously about what we do. It really says something about our maturity in life.