$10 MOVIE TICKET CHANGES A LIFE
My friend Andrew talked me into going to see a movie I’d never heard of called Requiem for a Dream. We were in college and didn’t have a lot of money, but I decided to treat myself because he was so excited to share this movie with me.
I paid $10 for my ticket and walked in. I love movies, but this one was an emotional punch to the gut like I’d never had in my life. It had me sitting there until the final credits rolled and the lights came on. My friend Andrew was smiling the whole time.
“Well?” he asked.
“Wow,” was all I could muster.
After an hour and a half, I walked out of the theater a changed man. I would never be the same. The movie made me feel so many strong emotions that I didn’t expect to feel inside a movie theater that I was hooked right away. I’d seen movies that deal with drugs and addiction before, but the connection I had with the characters in this movie and what they went through was so powerful that I became really absorbed in the story. The angles, the shots, the music and the dialogue just blew me away. From that point on, I knew what I wanted to do: I wanted to write so that others could be as inspired as I was that day.
When I got home, I took out a blank notebook that I’d had for years and started writing in it. I’d never written anything before, but I just had this urge to write that I couldn’t get rid of, and it was all because of the movie.
That was nine years ago, and I haven’t stopped writing since. I’ve filled up eight of those notebooks, penned two blogs, and I still write for various other sites on a freelance basis. When I fill out forms that ask for my occupation, I write “writer.”
Buying the ticket to watch Requiem for a Dream was the best money I ever spent because it awoke my creativity and pointed me in the direction I’d go in for the rest of my life. After years of wondering, I finally had an answer: I was to be a writer.
Ten bucks for an hour and a half of entertainment is a pretty good deal. But $10 to find out what you’re going to do for the rest of your life? That’s not just priceless; it’s awesome.
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