Frodo: I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times but that is not for them to decide. All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you.
Remember that? I wish I could show you the video clip…don’t have this one for you, but Frodo is standing on the shore of a river, about to push off into one of those elvish canoes. He is about to set out alone (you can see this in video here), probably moving to his death in some vain attempt to save the world.
I mean, seriously, who sets out to save the world? You’d have to be a little naive already, right? Or a dreamer? (if you know me well, then you are already laughing because that’s me….a naive dreamer who tilts at windmills in the vain hope of helping save the world). Well, if you know Frodo’s story, you realize that he didn’t choose any of this…he inherited this special ring from his Uncle Bilbo. The wizard Gandalf told him to keep it safe, which he did….only to then tell him to help take the ring to a special place called Rivendell. Okay…done. And yet somehow, this little ring became the key to saving the world and had to be destroyed and poor Frodo finally volunteered for the task. He had 8 other people to help him, but after a rough journey where one person had already died, Frodo was now about to set out on his own.
In the movie, director Peter Jackson has Elijah Woods’ Frodo thinking back to this exchange that he had with Gandalf. Look at it well. First he complains like a lot of us do…why the heck is this happening to me? How did I end up here? Sure, none of us are really going to be standing on the edge of walking to our own potential doom alone, but we may be in a really negative work place or dealing with a frustrating child or moving through a tough class as a student. Why?
Then the voice of wisdom comes in Gandalf’s voice—everyone feels that way. That’s actually very comforting. You are not the only person who is sad, dealing with challenge or finding yourself in a tough spot. In fact, each person I know gets there from day to day.
Secondly, whether you are upset about it or not, that’s nothing for you to decide. I think he means that you can’t go back in time to change things. Stuff happens in the world, both nationally that affects us and privately that only we contrive, but those things are over. You can’t go back to change it, and especially in the realm of larger events that impact us, you can’t get out of it. This is just the way it is. Now, on a personal level, you may have more control. You could quit your job to get out of that negative situation. You could drop the class. And this is what Gandalf is getting to with his third point.
“All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you.” See it? This third point of Gandalf’s is that you are in control of your next move. What will you do with this situation where you find yourself? You can do something. The variations are too multiple for me to describe here, but I think regardless of the situation, you control your next move. In Frodo’s case, it was clear to him that he wanted the evil to end, so that meant taking the ring to Mordor. And, to protect the others, it needed to be alone. Boom…decision made…off he went.
This is your time. Today. Use it well. You may be a tough spot. Each of us would wish for things to be different. They aren’t. Now, “All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you.” So, use your time well.