Aha Moment: Finding Nemo
Kiki Kienstra had a good job teaching kindergarten, a nice apartment, and a community of friends. “I didn’t have a big need for change,” she remembers. “You know, everything was fine, so why rock the boat?”
One day, on a whim, she saw Finding Nemo, a Pixar movie about a clownfish named Marlin on a quest for his missing son. At one point, Marlin and his traveling companion Dory find themselves inside a whale – they must decide whether to continue to cling to the whale’s tongue or let go and face an unknown future.
“I realized when I saw that scene, that I needed to make a decision about my life,” Kiki says. “Just staying in my life, just hanging onto the tongue, I wasn’t doing anything. I needed to let go of the tongue and see what happened.”
Kiki summoned up the courage to teach abroad in Mexico. Marlin and Dory, of course, escaped through the whale’s blowhole, and found Nemo.
â?? Is there a movie, book, song, or other work of art that’s changed your life? Tell us in a comment below, or by email.
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