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thejackofalltrades42069 · 10 months

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Become the hero (updated! version 2.0).

Image taken from the amazing TV series "Ping Pong the Animation".

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Intro.

This idea came to me mainly from watching Ping Pong the Animation (a short animated series), also from reading The Book of Five Rings.

One of the main themes’ in Ping Pong the Animation is about characters overcoming hard circumstances, finding meaning in life, and achieving things at the same time (this is just my personal interpretation for this post).

I'll talk about a way I thought that helps me overcome many things and stay motivated to keep working hard to achieve different things in life.

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*Note, the first time I wrote this post, I was thinking it was okay wanting to achieve too many things, BUT, at least for me, I found out it's not okay, because it's exhausting, I had stopped doing things that were more important for my health and for enjoying life in general.

Here's the updated post (:

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Context and example.

There are many moments in many people's lives where we think that life's way too hard and complicated, or when we think that achieving certain goal is impossible (like buying our own house or having a relationship that we like, that is functional, and that works in the long term). Most people are never able to overcome many difficult situations, they just stay in their comfort zone, other times, they simply don't have the means.

An example, many people's comfort zones include many addictions like consuming different stimulants through the day and on weekends, they consume them so much, that it affects their health in a negative way in the short and long term (things like medicine they don't need, supplements that are not needed either, alcohol, cannabis, other drugs, way too much caffeine, etc.).

Some other addictions and comfort zones include using social networks all day without much interaction with real people, some other addictions can range from someone's who's addicted to exercising and having a balanced diet (this can become a problem and an addiction too! I've experienced it) to some other people who just watch TV shows or play videogames way too much daily.

I'm not judging anyone, people can do whatever they want, the tendency of mankind is to do things that are easy and to stay in comfort, and we only live once. The problem about addictions is that we lose too much energy to those addictions that prevents us from having the energy to do other things.

Sometimes people are way too tired daily because they aren't sleeping well, they are using their cellphone too much, they have a really bad management of everything in general and waste a lot of time and energy, they have terrible diets, they're dehydrated, they don't exercise at all, they're spending all their energy on social media, they're addicted to drugs that end up consuming their energy (including alcohol), etc. It is important to solve these one by one (IMO), one step at a time if we want to achieve other things. We need to change our habits, and that is really hard.

For a specific example, in some moments of my life, I've had a really hard time sleeping, I know many people who do too, but instead of really trying to figure out the problem and finding long term solutions, most people look for the easy and fast way out, consuming a medicament or drug that will put them to sleep. Some others simply embrace the fact that they're going to be sleeping 4-6 hours every night and that's it, they just drink a bunch of coffee and stimulants during the day to be able to be somewhat functional. Both the easy way out with taking medicine and just sleeping less daily are not long term solutions and can be bad for health in the long term (unless of course, the medicine is diagnosed and needed).

If I have a couple of bad night's sleep, I can't really accomplish everything that I want to do on a daily basis because I'm tired, so I needed to fix that problem, it is always hard and it was really hard, but there's always a way to solve problems. I needed to change many of my habits and change things from my environment to have a better sleep, and for that I had to do a ton of reading, researching, and trial and error. I now know what I need to do to have a good night's sleep, it took me years to truly be able to achieve that, it was a lot of learning and experimentation (I won't go into detail, this is just an example, but I had to change many of my habits, my diet, my exercise, zero drugs, seeing sunlight early, no screens 30 minutes before sleeping, etc. I even made an appointment with a psychiatrist to see if the root of my sleep problem lies somewhere else, we'll see, but good habits help me sleep much better).

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How to become the hero.

When this idea about "becoming the hero" came to me, I was lying in bed having a hard time falling asleep, I was also thinking about the huge burden that my life has become with so many responsibilities and so many things that I want to do during my spare time (these include the relationship I have with my girlfriend, my new job, owning a small business besides my job, continue with the plan I've had for years to buy a house, the need to exercise, to have a healthy diet, wanting to learn new things, wanting to become good at my new job, wanting time to watch TV shows and play videogames, wanting to spend time with my friends, etc.).

I thought, how am I going to achieve all that? *note: I recently realized that wanting and trying to do all these things mentioned above is not realistic and it was making me feel stressed, I decided to quit wanting to do some things and take it easy with other things, just focusing on the most important and trying to have more chill and fun afternoons and weekends.

In perhaps what is a dumb and too optimistic way I remembered about Ping Pong the Animation and thought, "I need to become the hero", I must sleep well, exercise regularly, have a good management of many things in my life, have energy, stop wasting time on my cellphone, and do everything I need and want to do. This thought that I needed to become the hero gave me a lot of motivation and energy, and a good reason to keep doing everything that I do (of course, shortening and taking it easy with the list of things I mentioned earlier).

I noticed that I've spent about the last 8 years of my life learning new things on purpose that specifically have helped me have a better understanding about everything in general (things like psychology, philosophy and science), I've also been improving my habits and leaving many addictions behind, of course that I'm not perfect and I sometimes use social networks more than I would like to, sometimes I eat too much food for supper, or watch a TV show too late, and can't sleep well, but with the knowledge that I've acquired, I feel that I can overcome almost anything.

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Circling back to the beginning of the post, when a difficult situation appears, I suggest we try to solve it for good, we have a lot of information available, we can learn that information, we can do trial and error, we can always save some energy to learn new things and overcome anything (one tiny step at a time, I insist). And I don't mean this in a dumb and optimistic way, we can't always overcome cancer for example, but if we really try, if we find the right motivation and do things progressively, we can become the hero and overcome difficult situations, land on our feet, and become great at things.

Musashi wrote in his Book of Five Rings, and I completely agree that even if we "are not talented", we can work hard, and we will learn and become good at anything (we can't always become the best, but we can become great), we just need to find the correct way to do it, and do it progressively. In my case, I can say that in a lot of moments in my life I've met people that seem to be incredible talented at something, or really smart and knowledgeable. After working hard and learning more and more, I've noticed that I can be like that too, I can achieve that too, I just need to constantly work hard. After all, we are all just humans, and most of us really have the same capacity, but we're using it in different ways (many times in my opinion, we're wasting our capacity by spending a lot of time on TikTok, or spending too many hours on entertainment).

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Motivation and inspiration.

Staying motivated is a must, so find something that keeps you motivated and interested, if we just work hard always, our lives can lose meaning. No joke.

In my case, I've found that stories keep me going, they keep me interested and inspired (and I learn a lot from them), stories can come from TV shows, books, comic books, video games, so on. Practicing a sport is also a great thing that keeps me inspired, I've been playing ping pong often lately, it's great.

Going out and talking to friends or people I meet is also a great activity for this purpose.

My suggestion is to find something, and activity, a hobby that keeps you interested in life and that motivates you to do things that are hard (like work). That's up to you to find. But, limit the time you dedicate to whatever keeps you inspired, it's really easy to be addicted and to spend way too much time doing that activity, it will drain all your energy, even if you have time left daily to do things, you won't have any energy left.

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A few last notes

When we don't like our jobs and don't accept that we have to do certain things and just keep procrastinating certain tasks, we create stress and anxiety upon ourselves, becoming the hero includes accepting that you have to do whatever you need to do, and doing it without distractions that drain your energy (if a job is too awful, it's a good idea to switch jobs of course). Doing this during your job and finding satisfaction by doing certain tasks at the job is good for our dopamine system which is tied to our motivation and energy. What is terrible for example is, when we keep looking at our cellphones often or during short breaks, we completely ruin this dopamine/ energy system and just lose a lot of energy for the rest of the day (familiar with the social media burnout?).

One habit that's really important is our energy management, really learning what consumes our energy, and not wasting energy on things that at the end of the day will be pointless.

Another habit that's related to everything in general is to learn better management, for example, not consuming too much time cooking daily, finding a way to eat healthy, not spending too much money on food, and perhaps cooking 2 days a week and freezing food in food containers for different days of the week.

Another management tip is to stop trying to solve issues as they show up, we should take a note and make time to solve them later.

Making lists helps, for example, when we run out of some food from our kitchen, making a note, and then having a list for the sole day of the week we're going to the supermarket (or for the day that we're ordering it online), avoiding going twice a week to the supermarket and to other places we don't need to go saves a lot of time, going to the supermarket early during the weekend can also save a lot of time (no people).

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Conclusion.

Learning, practicing, working hard, making good habits, dropping bad habits, becoming more versatile, limiting ourselves with stimulants, drugs, and leisure activities, having a hobby that keeps us interested in life, learning to like and accept or change our jobs, and so on, these are all the things that together mean "become the hero" (for the use of this post lol).

It's a really hard thing to accomplish, there are way too many limitations, distractions, addictions in life that will get in the way, but, we can try.

Achieving just a part of our goals is better than nothing at all, it's completely fine if we don't achieve everything we want to achieve. It's okay to take things easy, actually that's best, but work progressivly toward your goals.

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anneangel · 1 month

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When I try to explain why 'I love' and 'don't love' The Hobbit, trilogy and book:

Peter Jackson, screenwriters, Warner Bros executive directors: Do you like The Hobbit Trilogy?

Me: oh, yes. I love 90% of it. And the cast is wonderful and the soundtrack incredible. I love 'movie Smaug', and I find interesting that the dwarves gain more prominence than in the book, transforming them into more central characters in the plot.

Peter Jackson, screenwriters, WB: What are your criticisms about it?

Me: There are many good scenes from the original plot that were changed for the movie without need because were already good in the book, many tense scenes in the book were transformed into 'action scenes', such as the escape from the Misty Mountains, Mirkwood and the escape in the barrels. And why revive Azog when just Bolg would be enough? And you guys shit on the character Beorn. And, well, the name of the movies are 'The Hobbit', there should be more Bilbo in this, right?

Peter Jackson, screenwriters, WB: So you like the book that much?

Me: oh, yes, I love 95% of it.

Peter Jackson, screenwriters, WB: Do you even have something honest criticisms of book?

Me: well, there could be SOME female participation, and I could follow Gandalf's journey to the White Council and Dol Guldur, both happen, but in the plot of the book it 'll not be narrated to us because the focus is on Bilbo and only him. And Thranduil doesn't even have a name, he's just called the 'Elvenking' of the Forest, let alone his son Legolas. Radagast is underused and only mentioned once. I would like more to be 'narrated' than 'told' to us. Understand? More dialogues actually describing what they went through, and less summarizing as 'after much deliberation they decided', it's something told. Maybe if the book was more 'narrated' than 'told', then it would be much bigger than it is. Well, It would be interesting to see the narrative from more perspectives.

Peter Jackson, screenwriters, WB: but that's exactly what we try to deliver in the movies! We gave you Galadriel, Tauriel and gave you Bard's daughters, hey, there's your female representation. And we gave you the White Council and Dol Guldur, we gave you more Elrond, and Radagast and even Saruman. We even gave you a badass and handsome Thranduil and we even gave you Legolas. Fuck you, we even gave you Frodo!

Me: Correct. I like the fillers created for the trilogy, nothing against them, the intention was great, the actors play their characters very fine and everyone did wonders with what they had, truly cool, the problem is that I don't like the PLOT of the fillers. Only that.

Peter Jackson, screenwriters, WB: So, in your opinion, the problem is our bad writing plot for fillers?

Me: oh, that's right. Exactly. With the exception of this, everything else was very good.

Peter Jackson, screenwriters, WB: But you can't just blame us! Others also failed miserably in this production, right?

Me: Oh, but the costume designers did relatively fine, cinematographers and art directors too, with the exception of Beorn's design, everything else is tolerable. Even if it wasn't faithful to the book on some aspects, but that's why it's called 'adaptation'. Including the CGI was 'ok', which many complain about, but I think it's an excessive criticism because it's reasonable compared to other current Worldwide Box Office movies similar to The Hobbit Trilogy.

Peter Jackson, screenwriters, WB: So, for you, what really left something to be desired was the plot written of the fillers and plot of changed scenes? Is it?

Me: Oh, yeah. I wouldn't be so critical of the 'need' for to be three movies, if the filler plot and new scenes was better written. But hey, I still like a lot about The Hobbit, whether it's the book or the movies. For example, now just talking about The Hobbit makes me want to read my favorite parts of the book and watch my favorite parts of the trilogy! Haha! Understand now?

#the hobbit #the hobbit movies #the hobbit trilogy #the hobbit book #bilbo baggins #the hobbit an unexpected journey #the hobbit desolation of smaug #the hobbit battle of the five armies #lotr #lord of the rings #peter jackson #warner bros #tolkien

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