"What do we do?" This is a common phrase that existentialists say. Samuel Beckett, author of the play Waiting for Godot, and Zach Braff, director and writer of the film Garden State, are examples of existentialist artists. Existential artists communicate that people need to question their relationships with external influences. Existentialist artists say that struggling is necessary to make decisions without conforming to the pressure of external influences. Beckett uses the characters in Waiting for Godot to show the complex relationships people have with others and, therefore, with society. Two characters, Estragon and Vladimir, wait on a country road near a tree for Godot's arrival. In the meantime, they do things to keep themselves busy until Godot arrives, For most of Andrew Largeman's life, he allowed outside influences, such as his father, his friends, and social standards, to rule his life. At the beginning of the film he decides not to carry with him the medicine he has been taking since he was eight years old. His medications make him numb to his surroundings. He showed indifference during his friend's party when everyone took ecstasy and also at his mother's funeral. At one point, Andrew admits to Samantha, a woman for whom he develops feelings, "that [feeling nothing] actually made me sadder than anything, that I felt so numb" (www.dailyscript .com/scripts/garden-stato.pdf). He hates that the drugs make him complacent. He wants to feel something, even if it's pain, because Braff argues that suffering makes people human. Through suffering you find meaning in your life. Another choice Andrew makes is to talk to his father, a psychologist, about the accident that left his mother confined to a wheelchair. Because of this incident, a huge metaphorical rift is created between the two. Andrew knows that his father never truly forgave him for this incident and put him under medical treatment. Even so, he tells his father about his feelings. Andrew states that he doesn't need her forgiveness, he just needs to accept her decision. This not only demonstrates Andrew's personal responsibility to tell his father the truth, but also his taking back his emotions. Andrew also chose to stay instead of boarding the scheduled flight. Instead of running away from his problems, he intends to stay and make things right, with Sam by his side. Its flight represents complacency. Because he chose not to leave, he fled by conforming to society's standard of what he "should" do after taking care of his personal business, which was to go back and work at a Vietnamese restaurant. Braff argues that external influences influence a person's way of thinking