Tom Cruise’s spell of starring in sci-fi movies ever since the groundbreaking Minority Report continues to grow stronger. If Oblivion was good, Edge of Tomorrow takes the game 10x higher to make things even more exciting.

Edge of Tomorrow is based on the oft repeated theme of time travel—a time loop, to be precise. It has been modeled on Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s breakthrough novel, All You Need is Kill.

I could not help draw parallels to the time loop in Groundhog Day, a 1993 classic starring Bill Murray. The primary difference being the time loop cycle’s tenure—Tom Cruise would repeat, or loop back, every time he died on the battlefield fighting aliens, whereas Bill Murray looped back every 24 hours at the start of his day at 6 a.m. in the morning.

Here are some profound thoughts on how this time loop applies to our normal lives as well.

Death versus sleep

In Edge of Tomorrow, Cruise’s life’s variable tenure would revert into the time loop through death on the battlefield. So by learning from previous deaths, he could avert getting killed until he could finally conquer the badass aliens. Unlike Cruise, Murray’s loop-back in Groundhog Day happened in a fixed 24-hour cycle via sleep.

…if only we treat the unconsciousness of sleep as death and take every new awakening as a new life, we could win over the mistakes of yesterday by undoing them today.

In real life, just as in Groundhog Day, if only we treat the unconsciousness of sleep as death and take every new awakening as a new life, we could win over the mistakes of yesterday by undoing them today. For example, if you were rude to your boss or colleague yesterday, why not be kind and sweet to them today. Life, after all, is about learning from past mistakes.

Fighting aliens versus our internal demons

Cruise fights aliens trying to invade the earth and kill the human species. In real life, is not war and hatred doing exactly the same? As newborns, the banes of humanity are alien to us, but they soon overpower us as grownups. Using this context, the badass aliens of Edge of Tomorrow are nothing but metaphors referring to our internal demons of lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride.

The true fight is in our fighting ignorance with knowledge and education; overpowering hatred and anger with love and calmness; subduing lust and infidelity with chastity and loyalty; slaying cruelty with compassion; economizing greed and excessive consumerism with charity and contentedness; spiting vindictiveness with forgiveness; deactivating indolence and procrastination with action; mistrusting cynicism with trust; and conquering ego, pride and the selfish “I” with humility, modesty and the inclusive “we.”

The reincarnation time loop

The concept of reincarnation runs across eastern cultures, especially the religious beliefs of Hinduism and Buddhism. Science has yet to fully crack it, but the likes of Dr. Brian Weiss (author of Many Lives, Many Masters) have proven otherwise. Despite its detractors, if we take reincarnation to be true, we keep taking rebirth after rebirth—the life-death loop—where every life is a chance to overcome our internal demons (and a chance to help others realize and fight them, too).

…in real life, unlike the few days of surviving battle in Edge of Tomorrow or the 24-hour cycle of Groundhog Day, our time loop’s tenure lasts an entire lifetime.

Just that in real life, unlike the few days of surviving battle in Edge of Tomorrow or the 24-hour cycle of Groundhog Day, our time loop’s tenure lasts an entire lifetime. And that is a long, long time. If only we could take cues from such movies and start learning from our mistakes by undoing them at the very moment of their realization—that will herald the start of a new life!

Yes, there is no need to sleep over and wait for the start of a new day. There is no need to die and wait for another lifetime (with concepts such as a reincarnated born-again or an after-life in heaven (or hell) after death). The very realization of a mistake, followed by amends to overcome it, is the start of a new beginning—a beginning that creates a heaven while still being alive.