Deadpool approves
This blog post will contain more than one valuable life lesson, it’s up to you to implement them. This is life lessons 101.
He who does not tire, tires adversity. -Martin Farquhar Tupper
Warning this article contains spoilers so you better check out The Revenant first. You can buy the movie here or you can read the book.
Like in most movies you can find some life lessons that can help achieve more in life. I could have taken Deadpool too. I just loved that movie.
But back to The Revenant now. Once you’ve seen the movie you’ll maybe wonder; what kind of lessons can you draw out of this movie?
Well I’ve got five actually, so I guess it’s possible
- Pick a goal and go for it
- Keep pushing no matter what happens
- don’t settle for less than your goal
- your surroundings matter
- Your setbacks will turn into success if you don’t give up
Life lesson one: Pick a goal and go get it
When Leonardo is left for dead by Tom Hardy, who also killed his son, Dicaprio want’s only one thing. That’s right he wants revenge. It’s like Quintus Arrius said in the famous movie Ben Hur.
“Hate keeps a man alive. It gives him strength.”
Now you don’t need to hate someone or something to get your goals. That would be absurd, but sticking to a goal in life can keep you motivated, give you the strength to hold on when life gets tough.
Most people get in a rut and live a boring life and they accept it. How many people have used the following phrase; “x won’t be for this life, maybe in the next life”. X can be anything a beautiful car, a promotion, a trip around the world…..
People tend to accept failure because it’s easy. I mean you don’t have to put a lot of effort into failing; just say “I can’t” and you’ve done it. Congratulations, you’ve failed once again.
Think about something you want to achieve in life and then go for it. Make it concrete so you will be sure that you’ll work to get it.
You can say “someday I want a promotion” or you can say “I want a promotion before I turn 25. I will spend less time on Facebook and focus more on what matters.
Do you see the difference between those two ways of setting a goal?!
The way you put your goal shows how much you want it.
Life lesson two: Keep pushing no matter what happens
Leonardo his character had lots of setbacks, he almost died three times in the movie. But he kept on going, doing everything to survive. He knew what he wanted and was determined to get it.
One scene comes to my mind right now; the scene where he gets chased by the Indians and falls down the cliff. It crazy that he survives something like this.
See failure as falling from a cliff. You’ve got two options after you’ve reached the ground
- Wait till you die
- Do everything to survive and keep going
Waiting till you die equals giving up, you think it only can get worse and see no point in continuing your journey. But think about the quote that I mentioned in the beginning. “He who does not tire, tires adversity”.
The other option is to do everything to get yourself on track, you need to work hard to survive. Do you think Bill Gates got his success right away?
Hell no, he got setbacks and probably more than one. Successful people don’t give up after a failure and that is the main difference between them and 99% of the world.
Do a second job if you have a setback on your financials, it’s something almost everyone in college does.
I recently learned a pretty great technique to solve problems. It’s called the 5 whys. This is an easy technique to solve problems and it doesn’t take that much time either. Just take a problem and ask why it happened and then keep asking why until you get to number five.
An example
You got fired from your job
First why: because you didn’t perform
Second why: you didn’t perform because you were tired
Third why: you were tired because you didn’t sleep enough
Fourth why: you spend more time on your computer instead of sleeping
Fifth why: you hated your job and wanted to escape from reality by surfing the internet
Note that this doesn’t apply to all situations but these are the exceptions.
Life lesson three: don’t settle for less than your goal
Eventually, Leonardo gets back to the fort and everybody is happy that he’s still alive. They give him good food and other stuff. This could be a downfall because you putting in a comfort zone. Most people will stay there and forget about their goals.
It would be a pretty bad movie if it did end there, doesn’t it? Why would you settle for less if they don’t even do it in a movie?!
Life lesson four: your surroundings matter
You’re the average of the five persons that surround you. This is a pretty good life lesson over here. His friends want him to track Tom Hardy down. Your surroundings matter and I learned this myself.
My friends are all hard workers so I’m one too but I would be a party animal if they were it. You chose your friends so you can’t blame them if you don’t succeed in what you want.
Life lesson three and four combined
Remember that I wrote an article about the fact that you should stop chasing girls? I recently talked to someone and she told me something that surprised me a bit. Her dream was to see the world but she said she would probably never do it. I became curious so I asked her why she wasn’t going to do it. She said that she probably would marry some guy, start a family and never see the world.
Why would you get together with someone that doesn’t support your dreams? Isn’t this one of the most crucial aspects of a relation?! This is the perfect example that your surrounding matter and that you shouldn’t settle for less.
You’ll date a lot less if you follow this approach but in the end, it will be worth it. It either this or doing dumb things due to unhappiness.
in conclusion: settling for less will turn your life into a mess
Life lesson five: Your setbacks will turn into success if you don’t give up
Near the ending of the movie, you see Leonardo sitting at the water-fearing for his life. Once the Indians get closer they just walk right by him.
They look at him but don’t harm him. Those Indians were the same Indians that drove him off that cliff. What once was a failure now turned into a success.
I mean staying alive looks like a success to me, getting killed would look more like a failure.
See failure as an opportunity to learn, even analyze it if you have to. Luck never runs out, it’s something you create. Only bad luck runs out because that’s something you’ve created 95% of the time.
The other 5% are things like death, a disease like cancer,……., those are the thing that you really can’t control.
The original post was called “three life lessons…..”. I was revising it on the bus but suddenly I got an insight and found the fourth lesson. I even found the fifth one while I was typing the fourth one. I’ve seen the movie six months ago. Luck? I call it pushing through. I wanted to get to 1000 words on this blog post and you can be damn sure that I got more than 1000 because I didn’t settle for less.
My story is another example of this last lesson.
Unhappiness makes people do crazy stupid shit
So what’s your excuse?
People always blame karma and God for bad luck because that’s easy. You put the responsibility on something you can’t control and satisfy your mind by lying to yourself. You’re putting yourself to sleep by staying in your oh so precious comfort zone.
So what’s your excuse now?
Till next time
Alex
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