The Majority of One

My mom is 87 years old and a huge movie buff. When I visit her, we like to watch movies together. A while back, we watched a 1961 Rosalind Russell film called “The Majority of One” about a widowed Jewish woman who lost her son in WWII and is very bitter toward the Japanese. Her daughter and son-in-law invite her to accompany them to Japan for their 3-year stint with the foreign services. The kids tell her she needs to get over her prejudice. So, she goes with them to Japan. She does get over her prejudice and even falls in love with a Japanese man and wants to marry him. Her kids have a fit and say she can’t marry him, with all the cultural and religious differences and, after all, “he’s Japanese!”

What do you make of that?

It’s kind of like when the family of an entrepreneur encourage her to “go for it” then complains when she isn’t home enough. Or the “friend,” who wants you to be successful, but then shows jealousy when you’re “too” successful.

We could and should have advisors and friends and teammates and colleagues that help us through our journeys. But, in the end, let’s follow our own intuition, our own (protruding) guts to our best lives!