Raise your hand if you’re a Dead Poet’s Society fan. I know I’m dating myself here, but in it’s prime, what girl could resist watching all those prep boys attending Welton Academy reciting poetry? (And I’ll admit it, I was hopelessly in love with Neil.)

The phrase “Carpe Diem” has forever been immortalized thanks to that movie, but there was another scene that has stuck with me ever since.

I remember thinking what a rogue teacher John Keating was (Robin Williams, RIP) when he jumped on his desk and told the boys sometimes you just need a different perspective.

“Can he do that?” I wondered. “Isn’t that against the rules for teachers?”

In that moment my perspective changed.

And now as a grown woman, I am still learning that I get to make up the rules of my life. And so do you.

And every once in a while, a new perspective is necessary.

This perspective is open to all of us when we “stand on our desks” or in other words, get a little bit of distance from our thoughts, and look at what they’re creating in our world.

Are the thoughts useful? Damaging? True?

When we stand on our proverbial desks, we have power over all of the thoughts in front of us. We have leverage over our own brain.

With that leverage, we can, in the words of Keating, “make our lives extraordinary.”

This happens when we realize we literally create our life–either by default, or on purpose. There is no one in the world that has more power over your life than YOU.

Including Neil.

(And now I’m headed to Netflix to see if I can sneak in the movie before the kids come home from school…)