You vs You

One of my favorite moments in all of Star Wars comes from the Clone Wars animated series. In the series finale, Yoda is off learning the secret to immortality; how he’ll one day become one with the Force. He faces a number of trials and tests. My favorite moment is in his first trial; he’s tasked with fighting a shadowy dark creature that eerily looks and talks like him, and the thing is kicking Yoda’s ass. “Recognize me, do you not?” says the creature laughing hysterically in a maniacal voice while running around in the dark. “Yoda recognizes you not” says Yoda. “I am you, I am your fear, your hatred, your anger.” “No!” Yoda stubbornly replies, “Recognize you, I do NOT!”

If you don’t know anything about Star Wars, Yoda is a super old bad ass Jedi. At this time in Star Wars, he is the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy, he’s Grand Master of the entire Jedi order. But a Jedi so powerful, especially head of the order, isn’t supposed to be prone to feelings such a fear, jealousy, anger, or hate; those are qualities of enemy of the Jedi: the Sith.

After getting his ass whooped by the shadowy creature, in a moment of Zen, Yoda finally says: “Recognize you, I do”, confusing the creature about to charge in for a final attack. Instead of pushing it away, now completely in control, Yoda grabs the creature with the Force and pulls it closer to him. “Part of me you are, yes” says Yoda, pulling the creature closer and closer. “But power over me, you have not” “My dark side you are, reject you I do.”

Everyone has their dark side; a part of themselves that they don’t like, appreciate or understand. No where near as cool as this moment in the show, but the past few months I’ve been pulling in my past, accepting my younger and deeply insecure self, towards myself; a part me that I have trouble knowing and understanding.

Why did Johnny do all those stupid things? In the past I’d be so troubled by the dumb things Johnny did that I let it stop me from feeling positive and in the present. I’d be walking down the street feeling good or having a decent day and I’d somehow remind myself of an embarrassing moment from my past. When that happened, the dumb thing I did long ago, for unexplainable reasons, would shatter any semblance of enjoying the moment where I was. Kind of like a kid with a parent, family member, or dumb friend who embarrasses you all the time and you can’t do anything about it…. Emotions, feelings and bad memories controlling my every move.

Knowing and learning more about Johnny and my past has truly helped me become a better John. In my past I just wasn’t driving the boat of my life, and my god, I’ve done some embarrassing and regretful things as a teenager a young adult and even recently. But so has EVERYONE. It’s ok to do stupid things, no one is perfect, and I’ve done my fair share of things I regret. Instead of letting those feelings control me, I’ve found it helpful to redefine failure as a learning tool. Accept what I did, know I probably could have done something different, learn from it and move on, not carry it with me.

I redefine what failure is everyday in sales I and spin things in a positive light. Redefining situations alongside learning to accept who I am and who I was has opened the floodgates; what was long ago an embarrassing moment or failure is now information for me to grow.

“Johnny, if you only used this kind of determination you have for video games for anything else in your life, you could do anything!” I remember my mom telling me multiple times as a kid when she was so frustrated with the amount of time I spent playing them. She was right for the most part. I quit video games at 21, sold my Xbox 360 because I felt it was taking too much time away from my life. And I have mixed feelings about all the time I spent playing games. Games were mostly an escape from a reality where I didn’t know how to live. But looking back on that, accepting that as an important part of life, I can finally really learn from it.

The most insightful thing I’ve learned from that time in my life is an unwavering determination to win. If a game was worth playing, I’d do whatever it took to get what I wanted. I’d put in the hours; I’d lose and die a million times to learn the process until I mastered it. I didn’t know I had this in me till now; I’ve just needed a cause and something worth my time and effort.

Your past doesn’t define you. Your failures, fears, hardships, insecurities; all the things that you dislike about yourself. Your pain, your suffering. NONE of that defines you. What defines you is how you react to all of it. You can live your life sad and hopeless that you’ll never change your situation, or, you can go do something, freaking anything. Flip the narrative; tell yourself a story that moves you forward. Change your perspective from sulking in your problems to dealing with your them. Be solutions oriented, stop being a victim in your own game of life.

Fucking love yourself. Imperfections and all. Accept your mistakes, regrets, and love the parts that you dislike about yourself that you can’t change and change the aspects of life that you can. Love the times from your past that you would normally cringe at; chances are, those times probably weren’t all that bad and you did or you can learn something from them now. Love yourself, because there will be times when you are so alone and you feel you have no one to call or no one to talk to and all you think about wanting to do is quit. And in those times, you have to love yourself, hug yourself, hold your own hand, ugly cry with yourself and tell yourself its all going to be ok, because it will!

Accept who you are. Flaws and all. Even Jedi Grand Master, Yoda, isn’t perfect. He had his doubts, insecurities, imperfections, yet he never let that stop him from fighting valiantly and unwaveringly for what he believed in. Be like Yoda, still learning at 900 plus years old, even when he felt like he had little else to learn. He worked hard, kicked ass, laughed at himself, accepted he didn’t know it all and he went on to become one of the most influential beings in all of Star Wars.

However long it takes you, love yourself unconditionally. Put down the heavy weights of perfection, stop carrying it forward. Believe, really believe, you can achieve whatever you put your mind to. Laugh at yourself, learn from all of yourself, stop letting your past define you and go conquer the world like a kid dead set on beating the hardest video game ever. What you want is not all that far away….. Its already inside you, all you have to do is manifest it.