Sparks

Each holiday season, the masses are inundated with seemingly endless versions of A Christmas Carol. There’s Mickey’s, The Muppet’s, the animated one with Jim Carrey, George C. Scott’s, Alistair Sim’s, Mr. Magoo’s, Patrick Stewart’s, Bill Murray’s, Rankin and Bass’, Reginald Owen’s, and Susan Lucci’s in an extremely underated (in my opinion) made for TV movie called Ebbie. That’s just a few and each year at least one new take gets added to the list.

It’s like humanity just can get enough of this story. Perhaps because people see themselves in the story? Everyone has had a stretch of life felling like Bob Cratchit. More than a few have behaved shamefully, stingily, and down right Scrooge-y.

We all like to think, that given circumstances similar to Scrooge, we’d never even think of behaving that way. But we all have. We all do. Every year, we falter. But, do you know what else happens every year? We all have a three ghost visit-type awakening opportunity. I don’t mean to say we have a time-traveling, trippy tour of our rights, wrongs, and ripples through out lives. I mean, we all have a near-death experience. Either we ourselves come close to finding out what all comes after we take our last breath or we say goodbye to someone who does. Each of us, if we are willing to use it, have the opportunity to see the impact of our inevitable human flaws. We have the opportunity to repair, or at least try to repair that damage.

On Christmas morning, Scrooge opens his eyes to see the morning sun shining through his bed curtains. That moment is the fulcrum upon which the entire universe teeters. He could have opened his eyes, propped himself up on his hand, and decided to clutch even tighter to his miserable ways because admitting he was wrong was just too much for his delicate human ego. But we know he didn’t.

Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.

He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!

The passage even explains that people, likely the people who were not on the receiving end of his cruelty, laughed at his new outlook on life. Not only did he choose to admit he was wrong and repair it, but he faced continuous mocking and did it anyway.

Each and every one of us has an opportunity to be Scrooge. We can choose to be Scrooge at the start or Scrooge at the end. We each have those foundation-smashing events that could nudge us in the right direction.

What stops you?
What keeps you stuck in your cruelty?
What would it take for you to wake up, admit you’re wrong, and start anew?
What would that cost you?
Is it worth it?
Is your happiness worth it? (Trick question: the answer is YES)
What could your life look like if you woke up tomorrow morning (no need to wait until Christmas morning) and actually lived the lessons you’ve already learned?

I’ll never forget the advice: “You are every character and every character is you.” When you look at life that way, you grow and develop your own character. That will keep you and the characters you write vibrant and rich in more ways than one.