Are you worried about the future, struggling with issues of money or relationships or just the normal messiness of life?

There’s a movie you should watch.

“Cast Away” stars Tom Hanks as Chuck Noland, the only survivor of a plane that crashes into the Pacific Ocean. He washes up on a remote island and survives for years by learning how to store rainwater, build a fire and capture fish for food.

After years of living on the island with no hope of rescue, Noland escapes with the help of a large piece of metal that has washed up on shore. He uses the metal as a sail that he attaches to a log raft. After drifting for days and near death, he is miraculously rescued by a freighter.

Back home, he reconnects with his former fiancée who, assuming he has died, has remarried and had a child. Both realize it is too late to pick up where they left off. Noland has lost his true love.

Distraught, he goes to a friend’s house and tells a story about what sustained him during those long, lonely days on the island and, presumably, what will sustain him now that he has lost the love of his life.

Thinking he can no longer tolerate life alone on the island, Noland had planned to hang himself. He had climbed to the top of a mountain and found a likely looking branch to attach a noose. Worried that the branch might not hold his weight, he tests it by suspending a rock from the branch. The branch breaks and Noland abandons his suicide plans.

Shortly after this, that piece of metal washes ashore and Noland is able to make his escape.

The lesson he took away from this he tells his friend is that, regardless of one’s circumstances, the important thing is to persevere through the difficult times because “you never know what the tide will bring in.”

This is a great lesson for us all as we grapple with the circumstances of our lives. It’s easy to be frustrated, anxious and worried that our lives will always be that way. Sometimes, we can see no escape.

But “Cast Away” suggests that, regardless of those circumstances, we have to keep “scanning the shore,” looking for that next “piece of metal” that will provide the sail from which we can fashion our escape.

Who knows? Tomorrow’s “tide” may bring the exact welcome news we’ve been waiting for.

QUESTIONS? COMMENTS? LJBARKAN@THEPIVOTALFACTOR.COM

Permission to reproduce is granted as long as the following citation is included:

Reprinted by permission of the author, Larry Barkan http://www.larrybarkan.com