Good Will Hunting

Good Will Hunting is one of my all-time favourite movies. I first watched it sprawled out on the couch of my parent's home while on the mend from my ulcerative colitis diagnosis between intermittent naps, a heavy dose of prescribed anti-inflammatories, and my daily driver - a ham and cheddar sandwich.

At the time, it was just a great story about a kid with an innate talent for mathematics that dropped everything for a girl. I resonated with the romance and the feeling of something just not being right. But as I’ve gotten older, without trying to sound like a narcissist, the story has become all that more fitting to my life.

Similar to the main character Will, it wasn’t long ago that I was on an illustrious path within the baseball coaching industry. Irrefutably at the top of my field; interviewing regularly with professional teams and a reference list that boasted individuals that were the very ones to make hiring decisions, it was only a matter of time until I became one of the few individuals to work in such a selective industry. Then I met a girl.

Unlike the movie, me and said girl never did work out. Similar to the movie, I fell for her deeply and it categorically changed my life forever.

I spent years solely obsessed with one love, baseball. As another lept into my life, I began to question my true feelings towards the game and my career. Love, well, some would say it makes you whole. Baseball never had this effect on me. Many nights it left me feeling empty. And others, with a flash of euphoria to power me into another 60-hour work week. With this girl though, the highs and lows were quickly replaced with a new foreign feeling - peace. Love brought my whole world into perspective. It was like a wave crashing into me only to wash me up on the shore of the island I’d been trying to reach all along.

I rewatched the movie recently alongside a close friend as we swigged whiskey and drunkenly lamented about our favourite parts. I think I now know why Good Will Hunting is such a cult classic. It tells us that “all” is not greater than love, it is synonymous with it. Love, first and foremost is what aligns our life.

Take me; once an obsessive, lonely, aspiring baseball coach who struggled every day with a deep sense of unhappiness - turned now into an average twenty-something man who smiles more than ever before. The difference? The pursuit of love (whilst also finding it platonically).

We’re taught to strive for greatness. The impressive title, fancy car, and admiration of others become our sole barometer for success. In turn, this becomes the blueprint for happiness. Will, and his counterpart, Sean, demonstrate that the blueprint we should be following is more of an ordinary variety - the type that needs to “see about a girl”.