OPINIONS

WWW.OBUSIGNAL.COM | PAGE 7 Dwelling on goodness leads to life-giving attitude

BY SARA PATTERSON

Editor-In-Chief

Willie Nelson once said, “When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.” I recently came across this quote and resonated with it due to a new practice I started.

At the beginning of this semester, I began keeping a list of what I call “little good things” that happened throughout each day before I go to bed each night. “Little” is a relative term. The items on my list range from “I ate a bagel today” to “I called my family” to “God has shown me grace.”

I started this practice because, as I looked back on the last few years in college, I noticed that I remembered them by the bad things. The negatives blur many of the positive memories of those years. I then realized that I was doing a disservice not only to myself but also to the good influences in my life by choosing not to remember them.

Philippians 4:8 tells me that I should think about what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy. By choosing not to dwell on these kinds of things, I was also disobeying God’s word. With these realizations in mind, I decided that I wanted to remember this year differently.

Usually, I would begin a school year armed with strategies to force the year to go well: I plan to work for good grades, participate in as many fun activities as I can and form fulfilling relationships with the people around me. While these are all good things to want, they are not good things to try to control.

I know that I don’t have any more control over what will happen this year than I did any of the other years. While I cannot control every little thing that will happen this year, I can be grateful for the little good things that do happen. I can also rid myself of worrying whether bad things might happen by surrendering those worries to God, as 1 Peter 5:7 tells me to do. As I reorient my mind to remember the good things rather than the bad, I hope that this presents itself in my actions and words, that they would be more life-giving because I am more full of life.

In a sermon he recently preached at First Baptist Arkadelphia, Christian Studies professor Dr. Scott Duvall taught on being a life-giver rather than a life-drainer. Duvall gave the congregation seven action steps to be a life-giver. I thought these steps were too good not to share with all of you.

1. Realize it’s not all about

you. No one is sitting around thinking about you– your needs, your mistakes or even your accomplishments. When we can realize that the world does not revolve around what we do, it takes the pressure off.

2. Stay close to Jesus, the

Source of life. Spend time praying, reading the scriptures and worshipping. Not to earn God’s favor, but to help yourself remember that you already have his favor.

3. Pay attention to other peo-

ple. We can learn a lot about what is going on in someone’s heart by noticing their body language, tone, facial expressions, etc. As we work to be more selfless, we can better meet people where they truly are. 4. Listen more, talk less. The ability to listen is an underrated skill in our busy culture. Take the time to digest what someone is telling you rather than pushing the conversation toward your own agenda. You might stumble upon a conversation that will bless you and the other person more than you could imagine.

5. Give encouraging words.

Whether written or spoken, tell people the good things you think about them. We can hesitate to say these things because we fear that the compliment will make things awkward, but the truth is that we all run off of the encouragement of other people to some degree. Especially in this transitional season of life marked by uncertainty, affirming someone’s skill set, personality or giftings can have a big impact. 6. Lighten up. Duvall said that the most spiritually healthy people have a sense of humor, so make people laugh. We could all use more of that.

7. Ask God to make you aware of opportunities for Him to

work through you. Believe that God wants to work through you and let him do it.

As we go through Tunes season and beyond, there will be challenges. I hope that we will not just persevere through this semester but that we will thrive by reflecting on the goodness in our own lives and treating others to that goodness in return.

‘Dear Evan Hansen’: strong message, weak plot

BY WYATT ASHLOCK

Arts/Entertainment & Opinions Editor

Coming out at the end of September, which is suicide awarness month, “Dear Evan Hansen” tries to bring attention to anxiety, depression and suicide, but is overshadowed by a train wreck of a plot.

Evan Hansen (Ben Platt) is a senior in high school with severe anxiety and depression who has to write letters to himself as an assignment for his therapist. When Connor Murphy (Colton Ryan) takes the letter and later takes his own life, his parents will go to Evan for answers, but with none to give, Evan finds himself in a lie that spirals out of control.

“Dear Evan Hansen” has some issues in the Broadway production and the film emphasized the wrong parts of the musical in the adaptation.

The plot of this movie is hard to watch, not because of the hard topics, but because of the horrible writing. The movie excuses all of Evan’s lies and wrongdoings, claiming his anxiety made him do it. While his anxiety does play a part in this, Evan does not try to undo his lies until he is caught.

The writing is not completely awful however as the movie gives representation to those who suffer from depression but hide it from the world, building a wall around their emotions. One of the new songs in the movie called “The Anonymous Ones,” written by Benji Pasek and Justin Paul, is a powerful song that gives a spotlight to those who suffer with mental health issues and have to stay silent about it.

The choreography of this film is atrocious. This is a main struggle throughout the entire movie and many times the dancing is two dimensional as if it belongs on a stage. Other times the choreography is so bad that the audience will cringe in their seats.

Platt seems to struggle to get his footing as a movie adaptation of his Broadway character. At times Platt acts as if he is still on the big stage instead of the big screen which is a completely different ballpark. Despite this, Platt does an excellent job at showing the struggle his character is going through.

The true star of this movie is not Platt but his character’s love interest, Zoe Murphy (Kaitlyn Dever). Dever was the biggest surprise of the movie with how her character dealt with the death of her brother who she had a strained relationship with. Dever brings Zoe to life in a way that no other character does and truly understands her internal struggles. Dever’s version of “Requiem” is very powerful. Amy Adams as Cynthia Murphy is the other star of this movie. Her character shows the true pain behind a grieving mother who is searching for answers which helps the audience stay grounded in this movie musical.

The cinematography is painful to watch as the editing is all over the place and at times seems as if this movie was edited in Windows Movie Maker with some of the cuts and transitions.

This film talks about very important topics but by the end, it leaves the audience without any resources or methods to get help.

This movie could have been fantastic but falls short in almost every way. I loved seeing the musical on Broadway, but even going into the theatre with no expectations, I was disappointed at almost every corner. The topic of mental health needs to be talked about more in society, but this film does not get to the core of mental health and does not show healthy coping mechanisms either. Overall, I rate this movie a 2.5 out of 5 Tiger Paws.