Toy Story Thoughts

This weekend, I got to watch the original Toy Story in theaters. How often does that happen?! It was the 30th anniversary, which was why it was back on the big screen. It had been forever since I had seen it and I forgot how solid a movie it was. It isn’t just a silly story of toys and their antics, but there’s some character development in there as well. There’s a reason it has stood the test of time, for sure. 

But the reason I want to talk about it now is because of a thought that hit me as I was watching it. This time around, I found my attention flocking to the character of Buzz Lightyear. In case you forgot, Buzz is a toy that thinks he is the real Buzz Lightyear, the character he’s portraying. His big development in the movie is realizing that he is, in fact, a child’s play thing. Woody was right all along. 

This depresses Buzz and he gives up on life. “What good am I if I’m not actually the famous space man?” Buzz thinks to himself. But Woody teaches him that being a toy is even better than being a space ranger, because you get to be the best thing that ever happened to one particular person. To that one life that you get to impact, you’re the hero of their entire world.

This, to me, is a reminder that we all hold value in places that we aren’t really focused on. Maybe even, that we can’t seem to focus on. Maybe it’s something you think of as no big deal, but that means the world to someone else. Maybe it’s something you do naturally that makes somebody’s day. Maybe you’re actually a lot better at making people laugh than you realize.

I think we all have things about ourselves that we don’t see. What’s scary is that we often push really hard to have value elsewhere that actually winds up putting out our brightly-shining stars. We put on our suits and dresses to impress people, desperately hoping to win their favor, when the best of connections are formed when we let people see us in our PJ’s. 

To me, this is all a reminder to let go of our need to be valuable. To stop letting insecurity fuel us and to embrace the mystery of our own value. I still have people that like hanging out with me and I don’t get why. I get that they do and I’m happy about it, but I couldn’t quite tell you what I did to deserve so much appreciation.

And I most certainly didn’t work real hard to get it. 

This is a hard one to do, but let go of your need to understand everything. Let go of the need to get it all and just live. Just jump into the waters, be yourself and watch as people get excited about being around you. The more excited you get about your life, the more contagious that will be. People will want a piece of it and then you will have people that you can call your friends. Maybe they’ll even write their name on the bottom of your foot!

Until Next Time

May Peace be your Guide.