We had a pleasant arrival of one of our children returning back from spring break.  Tyler is a sophomore at St. Martins College in Washington.  He came home from a rainy week–well it rains 5 out of every 7 days to be more accurate.  He has been soaking up the sun while being back.  Last night we decided to go to see a movie together and began looking for a movie to go to see.  It was more difficult than we anticipated.  A comedy.  A drama.  Suspense.  Animation.  Chick Flick.  Documentary.  A true story.  Could we find a movie that we could all agree to see?

We settled on a true story about an Englishman wanting to go to the Olympics.  The movie was entitled Eddie the Eagle.  It was a story about a young boy who wanted to ski in the Olympics, but didn’t have the skills or ability to make on the English olympic team.  It seemed that his goal would never be realized, until he saw on a billboard a skier jumping off a 90 meter ski jump.  Ski jumping.  A determined young man pursued his dream during the rest of film and the goal was realized toward the end of the film.  He qualified for the 70 meter jump and jumped to a new personal best as well as getting the English Olympic record.  His goal was realized.

It was a wonderful movie to see how a determined young man who was blocked at every turn pushed beyond all the naysayers.  His friends.  His parents.  Fellow jumpers.  Fellow Olympians.  His own coach.  Everyone important to him.  Yet he pushed past all the negative messages and was determined to prove everyone wrong.  The final few minutes was a culmination of his determination by having him jump on the 90 meter jump, something he had never done, and made a successful jump.  It was a totally feel good movie.  Until we decided to google the rest of the story.

Googling Eddie Edwards, the eagle, produced some information that changed the feel good experience of the movie.  It seems that Eddie was paid about $500,000 for the rights to the movie that now happens to be in the hands of divorce lawyers for Eddie’s divorce.  They say he probably won’t have any money left.  After the Canadian Olympics that Eddie participated in, the Ski jumping association became so indignant about having a person like Eddie participate in ski jumping (Eddie got last in both the 70 meter and 90 meter jumps) that they upped the requirements to eliminate something like that happening again.  Eddie never jumped again.

To experience such highs of going to the Olympics and then years later having to go thru a divorce and loose all the money he had gained is a painful reminder of life.  Someone has once said that we spend all of our life climbing the ladder only to find that our ladder was leaning on the wrong building.  Goals are important in life, but we need to make sure that our goals will outlive us.

On this journey, what are you pursuing?  Do our goals encompass important relationships in our lives?  There are only a few things worth pursuing.  Choose wisely.