In A Jiffy

Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your vain life which He has given you under the sun, all your days of vanity; for that is your portion in life, and in the labour which you perform under the sun (Ecclesiastes 9:9).






There are two things that are in common in all of Adam Sandler’s movies. 1, they are usually no-brainers. 2, they have raunchy humour.

But I find Click exceptional. Yes, it still has raunchy humour. But it’s not a no-brainer. It’s quite a contemplative movie.

The character that Adam Sandler plays finds himself a universal remote control, with which he can replay, pause, skip chapters, or fast-forward his life. Therefore, he uses it to fast-forward away all the parts of his life that he doesn’t like.

I’m sure we can easily identify with all these things in life that we would rather do without: An argument with your wife. An uncomfortable situation with somebody that you wish you can get over with as quickly as possible. A traffic jam that you wish you can escape from. A chore that takes almost forever to complete. A family reunion dinner that you dread so much. A long, hard wait for a promotion. An illness that you wish would go away in an instant.

With the powers that came with the universal remote control, Adam Sandler fast-forwarded all of them away.

It’s nice to avoid an argument by just fast-forwarding it away. It’s splendid to get out of a traffic jam in a jiffy. It’s wonderful to get a never-ending chore done as fast as you can click on a remote control. It’s so relieving to be able to whiz past a family reunion that you do not look forward to.

But what happens in between all the time that has been fast-forwarded?

Just because he fast-forwarded parts of his life away doesn’t mean that those things never happened. In between all the time, he went into an “auto-pilot” mode. His body is there, doing things that he should be doing mechanically. But his mind isn’t there. It’s as though he is present in body, but absent in spirit. His auto-pilot being gets him through all those tedious times, while giving people the impression that he has been there through it all.

Cool, isn’t it? But what are the consequences of that?

His "auto-pilot being" has caused him to miss out on the important parts of life. His present-in-body-but-absent-in-mind behaviour made him lose his wife. He didn’t realize that his dog has died. His father passed away without him knowing. His children grew up without him even remembering having spent time with them. He grew old, grey and fat in just a few blinks of an eye.

How did he come to such a situation? It was because he kept fast-forwarding his life. He always wanted to get that big promotion. So, he fast-forwarded his life to get there in a matter of seconds. As a result, he actually traded years of his life for just a few seconds. He fast-forwarded through his illnesses too. He lost up to a decade, just because he didn’t want to live through a state of bad health.

In the end, his life was over even before he knew it.

A sobering thought, isn’t it? We often do that too without knowing it. We don’t have a universal remote control. But we “auto-pilot” ourselves through things that we do not like, hoping that they will be over as soon as possible. Sometimes, we auto-pilot ourselves through a couple of minutes. Sometimes, we auto-pilot ourselves through a couple of years. Going through the motions, going through the motions...

However, if we “auto-pilot” ourselves through life like that, we actually lose out on a lot of good things in life. The most important things usually come bundled together with long periods of bad spells. We often wish we can just fast-forward through the difficult parts of our lives. But if we do not live through them, we won’t be able to grow with them. We will miss the best parts of life. The parts that really matter.

Indeed, there is great wisdom in King Solomon’s words. Enjoy the portion of life that God has given to us. Don’t let our impatience rob us out of it.

It’s ok to die no matter how long or how short we have lived. But not if you don’t even remember living.