Network (1976)

"I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!" Peter Finch as Howard Beale introduced this phrase into the lexicon in 1976 in the movie Network. When an aging news anchor is fired, as a result of declining ratings, he snaps and goes on TV to announce that he's going to commit suicide on the air. He's a one man trainwreck that everybody wants to watch. Ultimately, he's crowned "the mad prophet of the airwaves", given his own daily show and goes on air ranting about the truths that nobody wants to hear. The irony is especially clear when he goes off on the state of network TV in general, and his network in particular.
"I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!". It may sound harsh, but this isn't necessarily about negative energy. PK's last post really hit home with me. My own fear of success is most certainly based on things that don't exist anymore. Also based on others' perception of me that I embraced as truth and have perpetuated.
Right before my grade school graduation I fell off a bicycle. I was a mess. Broken teeth, fat lips, scrapes all over me, including my face. On the day of my graduation I put on my dress and stood on the front lawn posing so my mother could capture the Kodak moment. I mean, and I know this sounds crazy, I still have days when I look in the mirror and see that mess of a girl looking back at me. It's a moment preserved for posterity that I'd rather forget quite frankly. Another highlight of my teen years...One day in high school a boy I knew from camp teased me. As teenage boys are prone to doing, he said some pretty hurtful things. Which was a tragedy when I was 15. I'm not really sure why it's still part of my matched set of "baggage" all these years later.
The fact is, I finally realized that I've been dragging around perceptions that should have been wiped from my memory long ago. Most of them were never mine in the first place. So now I'm working really hard on putting all of that in perspective and truly taking control of the life I want. Yes, I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore! The only problem is that I've been "taking it" from myself. Ridiculous.