I read this Calvin & Hobbes comic a couple of days ago and it reminded me of a very popular scene from a very popular movie.

So what is common between the two works of art. Well its just that in the scene from the matrix the message was “spoon” fed to the audience (excuse the pun ;) ). In the comic Bill Watterson points out the funny side of a situation that is extremely common in our lives.

Bill Watterson substitutes life to snow and Calvin represents each one of us, Calvin ponders about fixing one small bit of the world(snow) to make it perfect for himself. The funny part is that most often than not things out of our control are perfect the way they are, if we need something to change the only thing that we have absolute power over is our selves.

In the Matrix as the boy with the spoon explains to Neo:
Spoon boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That’s impossible. Instead… only try to realize the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Spoon boy: There is no spoon.
Neo: There is no spoon?
Spoon boy: Then you’ll see, that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.

The snow and the spoon are both static in what they are, changing them to make them different is an assumption that rest of the world is perfect to fit them in… In the broader view of the world, the only thing imperfect in the world at the moment when you aspire to change something, is yourself.

Almost everyone I have ever met has always pondered out loud, “I wish I had that” or “If things were different, I could have done that”. Intrestingly the only people I know that have got/achieved what they wanted were the ones that realized very soon that it was them that had to adapt and change…