6 life lessons 'Captain America- The winter soldier' taught me!

I've just seen 'Captain America- The winter solider'. Wow, this movie is profound. It taught me some important life lessons, here are 6: 

1. The biggest fear we face: Fear of the unknown.

Not knowing is one of the worst things a person can go through. As Captain states, knowing the enemy is important. The idea that S.H.I.E.L.D was hijacked and knowledge and information was kept from the public about the public, in Captain America's eyes was worse than them knowing the truth. I found this concept really interesting; that not knowing who the good guys and the bad guys can cause such panic. It really drove home to me, that you have to know who you are, what you are and who you belong too and importantly what you believe in to live a good life. While the fear of the unknown hung over people, they seemed to exist and not live.


2. "This isn't freedom. This is fear" - Captain America. 

S.H.I.E.L.D in a sense wanted to protect society by the process of 'the greatest good for the greatest number', sacrifice your freedom and you'll be safe. Captain points out "this isn't freedom, this is fear". This was a mind blowing concept too me. He then talks about freedom meaning trusting people, and taking the risk. Telling them He chose to sacrifice His life for freedom because it is valuable to him. The US government is willing to sacrifice what has always being what Cap believes the founding aspects of the country, for the sake of national security, he believes it fear. Interestingly, fear then leads to paranoia and we see that in the film. People turn on each other when they are fearing something and when they are paranoid they can't relax for fear of what is to come. 

3. You have to let the past go, to get hold of the future. 

The most profound scene in this movie is when (SPOILER ALERT!!!) Captain and Natasha go back to where He used to be a soldier in the 'skinny Steve days'. He see's himself as He was - He sees his past- and has to choose to face where he was and his past and not be afraid of it. He is a different man, with the same morals but He has to face the pain of all the rejection and all the hurt He felt while at that training ground. He had to visit the past and be okay with it. He had to let the past to, and grab ahold of the future. The battle was waiting, there is an enemy and He had to run to his future.


4.To lose your identity is to loose who you are. To lose who you are, means you can be moulded into something you never we meant to be. 
In one of the last scenes when He is fighting with the Winter soldier. He reminds the winter solider who he actually is. He tells him, He is Bucky - His best friend. The Winter soldier had lost his identity and then become something He was never made to be but became malleable and mouldable because He was broken down from what He was. He WAS a soldier, who WAS Captain's best friend, he served in WW2. As Captain reminds him of this, even though the soldier has being taught something different, slowley who he actually is starts to appear. The memories come back.



5. To believe in people, when they give you good reasons not to. 
The Winter soldier gave Cap every reason to not believe in him - He tried to kill him!- but Cap said He wouldn't kill the soldier and said instead that he'd be the first one to be killed by him rather than the other way around. He still believed Bucky was there...


6.Unity is how we change the world and our world- not going along. 
At one of the first scenes, Cap gets angry at Natasha for diverting from the plan. She tells him she knows what shes doing and He should just do the job that was assigned him. He says the plan was to rescue and tells her that diverting was not in the plan. He confirms and re-affirms throughout the film that team-work and unity is a needed in order to save lives and to save the world. If you can't work together, you can't do anything. Driving home that communication is key. 

I also want to talk about Chris Evans' ( Captain America). I've already stated -in previous blogs- that I am very appreciative of his work ( I don't want to use the word 'fan' because I would never ask for an autograph, get his picture or be at his premiers), He is supremely talented and He really understands the culture He is living in (He has also done some incredible indie films). What He brought to Captain America was a multi-dimensional character; Its being said, Captain is the most boring avenger- in the actual 'Avengers' movie, He was incredibly boring- from the movie I have concluded He is actually my favorite of them all. He does have flaws, He can't allow himself a mistake and to get it wrong. I believe that to be a flaw, to force your ideals on everyone and be so into doing good that you sometimes forget to use grace with that truth is a flaw. He can be harsh and judgemental but I liked seeing the human side of him. Only Chris Evans' could have added such a human touch to a man who is presumed the most perfect avenger. He is talented and one to watch- both actually and metaphorically, because of his ability to really understand human nature.

Later on this year He has his first feature film coming out- called '1:30 train'- I can't wait to see this guys creative offerings. I must also point out that yes, I hate to admit the truth BUT he is very handsome and some good eye candy for this film.

External change is inevitable. Internal change is optional.

Your world will always change. The only constant in our lives is that our outside world will change. 

Money comes and goes. 
Jobs come and go. 
Some friendships come and go in their right time. Some are just meant for a time, while others for life.
Houses come and go
Where we live changes. 

BUT

Internal change in optional. How you view your life will determine how you live it. I've become convinced that its not necessarily the outside that we need to think about changing and fixing, its the inside. 

Think about it, how many people have you seen achieve their dreams but then go on a downward spiral because they don't have the strength of character to be able to see it though. 
I was reminded of this by watching 'Wolf of Wall street' - which is heavily based on a true story of Jordan Belfort- in the story, in which Leonardo DiCaprio plays Jordan, he states that to get through the day he needs various drugs. He say, and I quote: 

"On a daily basis I consume enough drugs to sedate Manhattan, Long Island, and Queens for a month. I take Quaaludes 10-15 times a day for my "back pain", Adderall to stay focused, Xanax to take the edge off, pot to mellow me out, cocaine to wake me back up again, and morphine... Well, because it's awesome."

This man who achieved all of his dreams, made 49 million at the age of 26 needed all this to get him through the day. Why? because he didn't have the internal character to be able to get him through the day. Quaaludes are a sedative that has being banned from the market, the stress of his day, other drugs to keep him focused and to take the edge off. 

I find this really thought-provoking and profound. 

Jordan was not built on the inside, he didn't have strength of character and the security and love to be able to do his job properly without the need for 'assistance'. 

My 2 questions to you is: Where do you get the strength and love from to live a good life, and have a good day? and Are you build internally strong to be able to achieve your external dreams?

We're having a confidence epidemic in our teens.

Its happening, an epidemic of low self-esteem.

As someone who is just healing with this issue, trying to work it out and overcoming lack of self-esteem more and more each day, I can see it happening all around. The reason why we have so many 'drop-outs' maybe is not because they are lazy, they may just not believe in themselves enough (some are lazy but not all!).

We are seeing a confidence crisis in girls and boys who really believe at their core they are not pretty, ugly, unintelligent, unworthy and unwanted. Its all around us. I'm sick of it. I can't cope seeing these young people with so much potential feel like RUBBISH. Not on my watch. I've being there, I know what lack of self-belief does to you, it destroys you. You feel isolated, lonely - then the self-pity kicks in- and in turn then start speaking that over yourself and it becomes a self-prophecy leading to you actually leaving yourself out for fear of rejection. This is academically, socially and aesthetically. I see young girls, obsessed with twitter and facebook, having to know the latest trend and feeling genuine anxiety if they don't have the latest phone and outfit. For a while, I believed that maybe they were a bit superficial but there is something deeper that in my ignorance I almost missed; a need to belong, a need to feel loved and accepted and to feel they have a worth. A future. A destiny. The latest phone for a moment brings all of these things but then its over, the latest relationship brings this is the hype of love feelings and hormones, and the highs and lows of emotions but the reality of love kicks in and it hurts. The sacrifice it takes can't always be handled by every young person because some are just wanting to fit in. This is all natural of course, every single person who has being an adult wanted to fit in. Its inbuilt in our DNA but the extent that young teenagers, who are so precious are going to is astonishing. What have we fed them? We blame society but WE ARE SOCIETY. We've sat back and watched our young ones become so obsessed with their looks, not encouraged healthy self-esteem as a general rule and created this place that says "If you're not a size 6, have a hollister jumper and have an Iphone" you can't fit in. Now we have a pandemic of young people who are so blinded by what they should be they can't see who they are. I was like this but with my personality, so blinded by the fact I didn't feel I had lots of friends and was Miss.Popular I didn't see what I was, who I was or what the truth about me was. I now am uprooting lies that are so deep within me, its taking a while to cut them off and build new highways; well how about building it properly from the beginning. I had close friends and family speak the truth over me, but I got so lost in what I was told my own age group, how rejected I felt that I just believed a lie over the truth. This is happening to young people, on a even greater scale because now in a society with statistically more broken families than ever before we are left with broken people. Parents who by circumstance are not co-parenting, single parents struggling to make ends meet. In no way am I crisiting singleness or divorce, sometimes its just a circumstance and not really anyones fault just a situation but its left us with broken parents and therefore broken children who need affection and need love but its hard to give (in no way have parents failed their children) when you have to work to live.

I'm recommending we start speaking positively and engaging our young people in positive conversations. Instead of hearing them affirm over themselves that they are not a model figure (however, it must be noted there is a difference between someone believing a lie and someone who is heavy and needs to go on a diet for health reasons) we have to re-lay the foundations of our young peoples' thinking. By making then say good things over themselves, engaging in positive conversation, helping them believe the truth and educating them into what LOVE says about them not what LIES say about them. We have to open our eyes as a society and start to deal with issues because if we don't history will repeat itself in their children.

Who am I?

There is a section of culture I hate.

The masking part, we all wear masks. I wear them all the time, I smile when I'm sad. For so long, I hid bihind a mask of a friend, a close dear one. Who I've being brought up with, she was my twin, we did everything together and even have the same name. I subtly and subconsciously allowed someone elses ideas and ideals and what they thought about me become and define me. We've all done it.

I've being a secret nerd my whole life- I love history, politics, human nature she doesn't, she was very fashionable I wasn't. But I let her define me, I started to try and be her. She never forced this on me, I presumed from how popular she was and how she was good at most things she did that she had a winning formula. What is there is no winning formula, just being an individual?

 I don't look like how you'd think. I'm not nerdy in any shape or form in the way I look ; I love fashion but prefer to find new ways to spice up my jeans, t-shirt or shirt, blazer and cardigan and trainers combination. This is my idea, besides looking at blogs and fashion magazines but nothing in the way I look tells you that I'm a nerd. I don't dress differently so you can see my 'uniqueness' I don't stand out in a crowd. But my interests lie in the nerdy section of life. This is not cool for most young adults. When people want to go partying and to nightclubs, I really don't. I want to have a long dinner, watch a movie and talk all night. I want to go to a pub for casual drink and chat. I want to deep chat and talk about everything in life and have true, honest and genuine conversation. I absolutely despise small talk and can think of a million things I'd rather do, than remark about the weather and the biscuits. I can watch Jamie Oliver and Bear Grylls all day, I absolutely love indie movies. Nothing in me is made to be popular and I'm not, I am very well loved but I'm not at the centre of the dancefloor.

Now I've realised that I'm not my bestfriend, I've also realised everything I held onto for comfort, to tell me who I was is a lie. I always thought I had a great knowledge of who I was. The horrible truth is I don't, or I didn't - now I'm starting too. I'm walking a path that not many walk because I've chosen to try and be myself. I'm taking off the mask, and its vulnerable and its scary. I'm out my comfort zone. But I'm learning to accept who I am.

My biggest battle is fear of rejection, rejection for who I am and everything I am. Its happened so much in the brief moments I've tried to be myself. It has also brought be true friendship from a few but rejection from the masses.

To try and figure myself out, I'm accepting that I am loved. Maybe the reason we don't take off our masks is for fear of rejection and that we won't be loved for who we truly are? I am loved always, all the time by the One who is love, by friends and by family. The more I know this, and choose to believe it and tell myself this truth. The more I am becoming be, the more I'm knowing who I am.