Love means to reach out and touch someone

Tonight I saw a movie called Good Will Hunting. It is a story about abuse. This story had a good ending because of a man named Sean Maguire, who was called a "failure" by his friend Jerry, which was the furthermost thing from the truth. We don't all receive metals or cups or are awarded for the things we do in life. Yet, for some its all about the glory and they are the losers. It is important to remember that "you are what you say you are." Time to change negative thoughts to positive ones and be healed.

A young man Will doing janitorial jobs is a genius. Yet, because he is emotionally scared he is afraid of love, and lives on the wild side often resulting in trouble with the law. The last time in court, he is thrown in jail as of no value until Jerry, who had previously witnessed his brilliance pleads with the judge to get him some psychiatric help and agrees to look after him. Will is not cooperative until he meets Sean. Will has an answer for everyone else but is not in touch with his own feelings. He seems incapable of having a connection with any living person, only those dead. Sean tells him "real loss is only possible when you love something more than you love yourself." We learn that Sean had a wife who died and it was the little things that he remembered most about her, and in fact gave up seeing a baseball game to have a drink with her when they first started to see each other.

Will starts to open up to Sean over a period of time slowly, at the same time he meets Skylar, who even though he enjoys her company, (she makes him laugh), he does not share intimate details of his life with her. He is afraid to get close emotionally, and that having sex is not the same as love. Real love means sharing your most intimate secrets.

Skylar tells him she is going on to school after four years in Boston to California and wants him to go with her. She tells him that she loves him, but he cannot say it. He thinks of himself as a failure, they part. How can he love her when he cannot love himself? (Or, be proud of himself, with having to lie about being alone).

He has friends, one who confides that someday when he goes to his house in the morning he wished that he would not be there. Why? because he knows he has a special gift and that Will is wasting his talent. After all it is Will who comes to the rescue of others with his know-it-all attitude. Having all the answers for everyone but himself. In fact, he is bored with people who aren't perfect and knowledgeable like himself. He is above others.

Its all a cover to hide what he really feels. Skylar is rejected and painfully tells him that he is afraid that she won't love him back. When someone challenges you to look at yourself, they love you. Only you can decide to love.

He is given an old makeshift car by his friends who put it together piece by piece. Just as his life's pieces are about to come together in a very positive way.

Sean is looking over his report and Will questions what it says. "What does it say?" That I have an attachment disorder? Sean tells Will that his father was an alcoholic and they discuss Sean's abuse, and Will opens up about his. Being in other foster homes he also has a fear of abandonment, so he pushes people away before they leave him. Will remarks "Is that why I broke up with Skylar?"

This is probably the most dramatic scene of all when Sean says, "It's not your fault." Over and over again, until Will breaks down and cries. And they embrace.

Will's heart has been touched. His past has been left behind. He secures a job. He is ready to move on.

His friend goes to pick him up and he is gone. A smile breaks across his face. Will leaves a note in Sean's mailbox. Something relative to having to go see about a girl.

Jerry and Sean talk about going to their reunion, the one he never felt comfortable going to because he was afraid that Jerry would see him as a failure.

Feeling like a failure is one of the biggest mistakes in life, because you become what you say you are inside. In life we must all come to grips with whatever is in our hearts if we are ever to be happy.