If you had a day to live over, which day would it be?
By Gregory Pings, manager, Content Marketing, Xerox
Groundhog Day has become synonymous with Xerox, thanks to the 1993 movie of the same name that starred Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell and Scooter the groundhog.
The obvious (and very old) Xerox metaphor is the repeated copying of the same day over and over. But the point of Groundhog Day is that Murray’s character was able to break out of the endless repetition only after he made a successful improvement in his life – a process improvement, if you will. I think it’s a great connection to our services business.
So I asked Xerox employees: “If you had a day to live over, which day would it be?” Their range of responses surprised me: Joyful, reflective, mourning and philosophical. They agreed to share their responses on this blog, and I share some of them with you.
Enjoy the Moment a Little Longer
- My favorite day was when I met the love of my life in 1975; who, thankfully, is with me still. The moment when we started our lifelong conversation is very dear to me, even if she does not remember it. (Keith Turner, Uxbridge, United Kingdom)
- I would relive a day spent in a field when my children were still innocent and filled with wonder at everything. (Sharon Williston, St. John, New Brunswick)
- I’d love to go back to fifth grade and see the class performance of The Mystery of Mulligan Manner — the first play I ever wrote. Now that I have written four produced plays as an adult, it would be incredible to be able to go back and see that first one, whose script is unfortunately lost to the ages. (Kat Fischer, Rochester, New York)
Do It Over, with More Heart
- I’d relive the day my Mom and I went to the Grand Canyon when I was about 11 or so. I hated it, and didn’t really appreciate the whole road trip or that particular day till much later when she was gone. (Alyssa Koechlein, Anchorage, Alaska)
- Just after Christmas five years ago, my younger (and quarrelsome) 37 year old brother, and I were in the back of a Jeep while my father was driving. Instead of singing Christmas carols, my brother and I sang Broadway songs that we both knew. We harmonized naturally and, though neither of us were professional quality, we sounded fairly good. My wife, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, leaned back around the seat and whispered to me that my father was crying. I stopped singing and asked him what was wrong. He told me he was just overwhelmed by hearing his two sons together and how beautiful the moment was. A week later, my brother had an aneurism in his brain and died. If I had a day to go back and relive I would go back to that day and tell him how proud I was to be his brother, and try to listen and appreciate the same way our father did on that day. (W. Keith Pomeroy, Sauquoit, New York)
Thanks, But No Thanks
- Part of the enjoyment of any day is the surprises that occur during it; one can never experience those surprises a second time. (Jan Harrington, New York City)
- Each day, even the simplest one, is a gift. Each meeting is worth to live and we never know what the next day will be so I wouldn’t miss it. This is what life is just for. (Jean-Yves Bouche, Geneva)
The Last Word
- There are many things that I’d like to change. But I have read far too much Sci-Fi to casually change the past, for fear of the unintended consequences of those changes. (Ray Bradbury’s A Sound of Thunder, for example.) I recall a quote that goes something along the lines of:“There are only two days in a given week when we cannot act: yesterday and tomorrow.” (Tom Mulcahy, Indianapolis, Indiana)
Feel free to share your Groundhog Day wishes in the comments section below.
