The Groundhog Day Syndrome & Six Steps to Avoid It

Wishing all my dear readers a happy, healthy and hearty 2024!

There are two days in the year which send us into either a pensive or celebratory mood – one is our birthday, and the other is New Year’s. More so New Year’s. Strange that a year added to your existence on Earth doesn’t have the same effect that a digit’s change in the year in a calendar does! Probably because your birthday is yours alone, while the New Year’s is a universal event. As a result, however much one tries to be immune to the hype around the new year and try to treat it as just another change of day and month and year, the surround sound around the change of year makes one succumb to it. There are various initiatives that one plans to embark upon, the most popular ones being Dry January and joining a gym. The more deep thinking ones among us pose ourselves existential questions about what we have been doing, where we are, where we are about to go, what is it that we can change, etc etc.

Though I don’t have data to support my theory (or at least I haven’t taken the necessary efforts to dig), I don’t think I would be way off the mark when I say that many of us question the relevance of what we have been doing in the larger scheme of things. Where some/many of us confront ourselves with the fact that maybe our life doesn’t operate at the level at which we would like it to, or change at the pace we would like it to. I call it the Groundhog Day syndrome.

Groundhog Day – the actual day - derives from the Pennsylvania Dutch superstition that if a groundhog emerges from its burrow on this day and sees its shadow, it will retreat to its den and winter will go on for six more weeks; if it does not see its shadow, spring will arrive early.

Groundhog Day – the movie – uses this day as the backdrop for what the protagonist goes through when he goes to cover the happenings of the day for the TV channel he works for. The synopsis of Groundhog Day goes thus: A cynical TV weatherman finds himself reliving the same day over and over again when he goes on location to the small town of Punxsutawney to film a report about their annual Groundhog Day. His predicament drives him to distraction, until he sees a way of turning the situation to his advantage.

For those of you who haven’t watched this 1993 Bill Murray & Andie MacDowell classic, please do. Make that your first new year resolution.

The synopsis, however, just about scratches the surface. It is a face-value description of the goings-on in the movie. The movie is quite deep and has got the power to affect you at visceral level. It is a metaphor of sorts. At multiple levels.

Do watch this 3 minute clip where Harold Ramis, the movie’s director, recounts the various interpretations he heard of his own movie after its release.

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Groundhog Day, the movie – not the tradition, is a metaphor for being stuck in a rut. It is more like a situation that one finds oneself in quite often where it just feels like you are the proverbial hamster on a wheel. And the only way out is to go back to the basics. A colleague of mine had rightfully applied it to an on-going situation with a client where anything and everything the agency did to please and appease the client just came to nought every time. The client always found a reason to crib and complain and not be satisfied – ever. And we, the agency, would go back to the office, rework stuff overnight, go back the next day to present the revised work which was – mind you – based on feedback given by the client, who would once again change the goalpost, whine that we didn’t get it, and off we went back to the office for yet another round. And on and on it went. Till we went back to the brief document, i.e. we went back to the basics. Discussed it and rediscussed it with the client with every level of change that was carried out basis feedback given and pinned him down on the exact, specific points that had to be addressed. Turned out, he was only second guessing his boss. And in doing so got confused on what exactly was it that he wanted. He was stuck in a rut, and got us stuck in one too. In the next we presented a fresh take on the same brief … voila … we had a campaign.

Groundhog Day is a metaphor for the daily lives we live. We all become victims of routine – however different that routine might be from the conventionally accepted norms of routine. There is the bank cashier kind of routine or the data entry operator kind of routine. And we also have the tattoo artist or the set designer kind of routine. The latter one is actually not a routine from an outsider’s point of view. But routine it is to the practitioner.

Groundhog Day was something we experienced during early Covid times when the world went into lockdown mode where one lost count of time, days, weeks, months. It just seemed like a never ending post-apocalyptic scenario where everyone went into a time warp, where one day was no different from the next.

Groundhog Day is also a metaphor for giving yourself a reality check if you find yourself in an ego-driven loop of living in an echo chamber (which is also another kind of routine), like Bill Murray’s character in the movie. It is a metaphor for change and being a good person – Murray’s character is able to break the loop when he finally confronts his own true self and not the image that he has of himself in his mind, and changes from within.

It is a metaphor for rebirth (of the self) and for mindfulness. As Murray’s character in the movie does, so do we largely behave in the same manner. We exploit our position for every selfish purpose before finally learning to recognize, and eventually prioritize, the needs of others.

Groundhog Day is a syndrome that everyone faces – some realise it, some don’t. Those who do are able to come out of the funk. Those who don’t either live a nothing life, or are shunted by the wayside.

But what Groundhog Day also tells us is that the human race is quick to adapt to any kind of routine that life throws at it. It is our innate survival instinct that sees us adapt to and adopt a new way of life – good, bad or ugly. Groundhog Day offers a glimmer of hope that man, by nature, keeps evolving and makes the most out of any situation. The movie is like a timely reminder to all those who feel stuck at whatever station in life they are at. It’s completely up to us to come out of the funk than to just completely give up and be cynical. The trick is to be able to realise when one is sliding into a Groundhog Day life and then take steps to come out of it. Because either you force the change to happen, or circumstances will force the change upon you. And that, as we all know, has never benefited anyone.

Groundhog Day, thus, is an intense exercise in self-reflection. We could all use a little of that. What we do after, of course, is what determines whether or not we keep having to smash our alarm clocks (as Murray’s character in the movie does), or if we can finally move forward with our lives and out of the dark fog that sometimes follows us around.

As yet another new year commences it would do us a world of good to work on some simple principles that would, hopefully, help avoid the Groundhog Day syndrome from setting in – not just this year, but for years to come:

• Don’t be a prima donna.

• Surround yourself with the right people.

• Help a stranger … and a co-worker.

• Bring change with new skills.

• Today is tomorrow, i.e. a new day.

and last, but not the least

• Be braver. Be kinder.

  

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For Keep Watching, I will leave you with the trailer of … what else but … no review. Trying to capture the many layers, many nuances and many lessons that the movie has into a short review would be doing it grave injustice.

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