Orange County
One of my favorite movies is “Orange County.” When I was in high school, I would put the movie on and watch it until I went to bed at least once a week. I don’t know why I liked it so much, but I just thought it was an incredibly entertaining movie.
If you haven’t seen it (which may be a good thing. It’s PG13, but that doesn’t mean it’s wholesome by any means), this is the basic premise: A high school surfer-dude, Shaun, from California finds a book in the sand. This book is written by a professor at the University of Stanford, who quickly becomes Shaun’s hero. After reading the book hundreds of times from cover to cover, Shaun decides that he no longer wants to be a pro surfer, but a writer. His first step after graduating high school is to study with this professor at Stanford. Although he’s got the grades that would cause your grandmother to smooch all the saliva that she has onto your cheeks, the movie goes on to follow the adverse situations that cause this task to become unattainable.
One thing that I love about this movie is the fact that Shaun decides he will be a writer, despite the opposition of his friends and family. His only advocate is his girlfriend, who he claims is too supportive to be of any real help.
[Spoiler alert – which is fine. Cause I don’t condone the viewing of this movie anyways. Haha] In the end of the movie, Shaun randomly bumps into the professor from Stanford. Unbeknown to Shaun, the professor that changed his life had read the book that Shaun sent to him. Not only that, but the professor was incredibly pleased with his writing ability. Shaun then comes to the realization that he never wanted to go to Stanford in the first place; all he really wanted was to receive the affirmation from this professor.
Sometimes we have all these ambitions and goals, which are GREAT. Without goals, we would get stuck in monotonous living and probably give up on life. However, when our sole focus is on these goals, everything else in life is peripheral. I think Shaun finally realized that. I don’t recommend trying to get your affirmation from some random professor, but perhaps the affirmation of whom we’ve been searching for has been supporting us from the very beginning. When we give our lives as a sacrifice to the Lord, we’re able to surrender everything else and live for the only thing that matters. Our goals change with time, but He will always remain constant.