Lesson from Hero

This afternoon, I found the time to watch the movie “Hero” for the second time – courtesy of Paul. Watching the movies under the home setting, there is more time to listen closely to some of the conversations. The high point of the movie is when Qinshihuang said to the assassin at the crucial moment, “Of all the people that I know, my officials, my generals… it turns out that it is my assassin, my arch-enemy who understands me most”. What he meant is that of all the alleged tyrannical deeds, expansionist policy, elimination of opponents, they were done with the grand plan of unifying the fractious country of China into one large single country. It is the big picture that overrides the small issues. This is the irony of the whole movie. The people who were supposed to understand him most failed to understand while the people he least expected to understand turned out to be the one who truly understood after all.

This is also true of the story of Jesus' final moment on earth when he was praying with his three closest disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane. Instead of staying awake to provide the support and understanding at the time of Jesus’s trying moment, they fell asleep.

The previous Saturday evening, we had the premarital counselling session discussing about the topic of "communication". The gist of the session is to impress upon the couples the importance of genuine communication and understanding of each other. The main objective is to encourage the couple to learn to connect. I was reminded that during unpleasant moments, instead of confronting your spouse antagonistically and/or negatively, try to approach the issue more soberly and positively. Rather than saying “Hey, didn’t we agree to meet at this place at 3.00pm and how come you so easily forget!” We were told to say statement likes this, “I wish you could give me a call first to let me know that you may be slightly late!”. Good lesson to remember.