Why Life Isn't Like a Movie
Sorry, Joe Rogan.
When I was younger, I used to love the video that Joe Rogan did for Onnit where he says to “be the hero of your own movie”.
When I saw this video, I was 18 or 19, and I was at a point where I felt that I desperately needed to be the hero of my own movie to get myself together.
I wasn’t really good at anything yet (most 18-year-olds who aren’t prodigies aren’t), I had no real money (most 18-year-olds don’t), and I was pretty lost as to what I was going to do with my life.
In the years that followed, I went deep down a self-improvement rabbit hole, investing myself intensely in Jiu-Jitsu and later writing. I started to compete professionally in Jiu-Jitsu and eventually, I became a ghostwriter.
I structured my life around the idea of “being the hero of my own movie”. I structured my life around being the main character of my own story.
However, I’ve recently realized that unfortunately, life isn’t about that.
Life is actually a lot different from the movie I was trying to “a hero” of.
January was a tough month.
On January 6th, a few weeks ago, I returned home to Austin after 35 days of traveling.
When I walked into my apartment, I knew something was wrong.
The light switches weren’t working, the central heating wouldn’t switch on, and there was a dull scent of rotting food coming from the freezer. No power.
It turned out that in the time I was away, the city of Austin had shut off my power. I set up an autopay on the electricity, and it had failed. The city never called me, but they’d been sending letters to my mailbox — which was broken. Meaning, the post office was holding onto dozens of letters reminding me to pay my bill.
I ended up having to live in a hotel for 2 nights (and one more night at home in a powerless apartment), and I had to pull out an extra $600 to pay the electricity bill that I’d been accidentally “avoiding”.
This was just the beginning.
The following week, we had a freeze here in Austin, and I was without running water for 48 hours. I also got “ghosted” by one of my writing clients. Then I lost water again — I don’t know why.
I was also dealing with the physical adjustment of reacclimating my body to the intense training here and a new strength and conditioning program.
For 2 weeks after I came back, I wasn’t sleeping right, I was either writing or training every hour of the day, and I was cursing myself for choosing to “make my life like a movie”.
It was in these moments, that I thought of that stupid Joe Rogan video once again.
If life is a movie, it’s a low-budget one.
Compared to intense action movies, most of my days are very boring.
I wake up, make coffee, and work on my writing. At around 11:35 (but usually closer to 11:45), I go to noon training. After that, I come home, make lunch, have an espresso, and work on messages and social media for the day. Around this time, I also call my girlfriend.
After that, I go to the gym. I lift from 4-5 or so, and then I go home and shower again.
After my shower, I either write more or go back to B-Team to rewatch the security footage of training that day. Then, I head home and make dinner. After dinner, I read a book or watch an episode of a TV show. Then, I FaceTime my girlfriend.
Then, I go to bed and wake up the next day, where the cycle repeats.
While I love this routine — it brings me a great deal of joy — it’s not exactly the “being the hero of my own movie” that I had dreamed up when I was 18. I’m happy and working on fulfilling projects, but I am not “being the hero of a movie”. I’m just living a life.
And see — although the picture for this article is me on the Amalfi Coast, this isn’t Tenet. I’m not writing this article in a black tie while sipping $500 wine, I’m writing it at home in shorts and a T-shirt, sipping a Rambler Sparkling water.
That’s real life. It’s not really like a movie.
But that doesn’t mean that life is bad.
We shouldn't judge life based on the highlights — although social media tends to make us do this.
People always think I’m living a more exciting life than I am because of my Instagram posts or my upcoming competitions.
And yes, I’ve been very lucky to have the opportunities I’ve had in the last year. I’ve been all over the world doing Jiu-Jitsu, written a book, and moved my entire life to a new city just to get better at the things I do.
But I haven’t been able to do that because I’m the “hero of my movie”.
I’m not really very heroic, anyway. Some of the choices I’ve made in the last year have been selfish.
I also get anxious. I make mistakes. I screw up. I’ve gotten 3 flat tires in the last 4 months thanks to these stupid potholes here in Austin that I keep on smacking.
No. I’m not a hero.
I worked really hard to give myself a chance to screw everything up down here, and I’ve also had a lot of help from my family, my girlfriend, and a few of my close friends back home who still take the time to talk to me every couple of days.
So no, my life is not a movie, but I don’t think I even want it to be one.
I don’t want the constant drama that you see in movies. I want peace, and in movies, you only get peace in the end. In real life, you can peace every day.
You can have it at dinner with a loved one. You can during a walk outside in the afternoon. You can on the drive home from Jiu-Jitsu practice. You don’t need a movie.
The other night, my girlfriend and I watched this crazy movie called Saltburn on Amazon Prime, and it was extremely dramatic. All I could think about after watching the movie was that I would never want my life to be like that.
I don’t think I want my life to be like any movie, for that matter.
Closing Thoughts
I don’t want to completely poo-poo on self-help, hero’s journeys, or any of that motivational stuff. I like that stuff.
It’s like philosophy, watered down.
Also, there are elements of life that are “movie-like”.
Competing in Jiu-Jitsu makes me feel like my life is like a movie. My relationship reminds me of a movie at times. My travels remind me of films.
Being in London reminds me of Sherlock Holmes. The Amalfi Coast reminds me of Tenet. Training for a match reminds me of Rocky.
There are periods of life that are like a movie.
I’m just trying to work on dropping the idea that my entire life needs to be this exciting adventure filled with constant action. That’s not life. Life is not a movie.
I’m embracing the idea of slowing down so that when I need to, I’m not just ready to speed up — I’m excited about it.
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