Escape!

On NPR today I heard something that got me thinking. Woody Allen explained how film was always an escape for him as a boy and how that escape developed into filmmaking in adulthood. He described the joy and magic of being in a bar scene compared to the dull reality of actually going to a bar. After completing projects he wants to get right into another so that he can escape. (I would too if I lived in New York City!) Listen to the interview if you want.  Woody Allen on NPR

I agree with Allen- the world is a dull and dreary place. It seems all of us want to escape it at times (or maybe all of the time) and we all have different hatches to get out. The tired old saying comes to mind, "You can tell what kind of person someone is by what they do in their free time." With the aforementioned thought in mind, I would change that statement to say; You can tell what kind of person someone is by their escape. Woody is obviously an entertainer at heart. If your escape is watching football and playing video games you are probably a true competitor. If you love to shop for clothes and clean you may be a perfectionist. You can do your own escape palm reading.

Some escapes produce meaningful results, others can be wasteful. We can morph our escapes to produce whatever we want most. Playing video games isn't going to produce much, but participating in a softball league will get you friends and in shape. It is important that we recognize the roots of our escapes and if we feel a need to modify them into more productive activity, make sure that we fulfill our personal needs that the current escape provides. This is the best way to kick bad habits and incorporate new ones. You have to fill the hole with a similar shaped filling for it to stick. 

So listening to Woody talk about how his escape morphed from watching movies as a child to making them as an adult made me wonder if I could modify some of my escapes into activities that would create more beneficial outputs. I think we all can. Happy New Year and may all our resolutions and goals come to fruition and make us and the world a better place, if only a little.

What are your escapes? Productive or not?