Get In-Touch with Your Inner-Self

Richard Arlen: “If you were wishing now, what would it be?”
Fay Wray: “Oh, for something simple or natural… something I couldn’t buy.”
From the 1937 film “Murder in Greenwich Village”

When we take the time to get in touch with our inner-selves, we learn that what we desire most in life are the things that are “simple or natural;” the things we can’t buy or achieve or earn. And nothing is more simple or natural than love.

In the Columbia Films motion picture “Murder in Greenwich Village,” Fay Wray plays Kay “Lucky” Cabot, a rich debutante who likes to be adventurous much to the chagrin of her millionaire father. Richard Arlen plays Steve Jackson, an average Joe who makes a living as a commercial photographer. When the two characters happen to meet, Kay learns some important life lessons.

First, she’s been use to getting what she wants, either by manipulation or a purchase price. Steve Jackson is an anomaly for Kay. She can’t manipulate him into wanting her and he isn’t interested in her money. For the first time in her life, Kay knows what it’s like to really feel love for someone, and she’s powerless to make Steve love her. Oh, she tries. She woos Steve, sets him up (unbeknownst to him) with a great business contract and uses her influence as best she can, but nothing works. Truth is, Steve loves her too, but he sees through her manipulative games and he won’t be manipulated. He wants her to be honest.

It takes wishing on a falling star for Kay to realize that what she wants most in life is something that comes naturally. She’s forced to cut through all of her games and to be honest with herself. All of her family’s money, the trips abroad, and her many shenanigans have never made her happy. What she really wants is love and she’s found that love in Steve; and so she finally allows herself to be genuine and vulnerable. Steve then allows himself to be equally genuine and vulnerable—and the wish on that falling star becomes reality for the two of them.

We don’t have to wish on a falling star to turn inside and be honest with ourselves. We won’t find our happiness in a bottle or a bakery or a trip to Paris. We won’t find our happiness in money or manipulation. We can’t earn or achieve happiness. It simply happens when we start valuing love as the most essential ingredient in life. Love is the only ingredient that allows our souls to shine!

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