How would you feel being targeted because of your religion, and later on, race? For Max Eisenhardt, it was immense anger.
As a child, he saw his Jewish family killed in the Holocaust.
And as an adult, his infant daughter died from a fire set by an anti-mutant mob. All the trauma made him realize that he couldn’t live an uneventful and regular life. He had to protect himself, and most importantly, the mutant race. So shortly after, Mr. Eisenhardt vowed to do whatever it took to achieve his mission and became the monstrous Magneto.
This transformation led him to recruit an army of mutants, steal money, and attack humans in the process. Magneto was not afraid to deal with all the challenges and consequences of his life mission. Rarely backing away from anyone or anything and not caring what others thought of him.
Magneto achieved this stature in life only as a villain.
And when it comes to getting ready for the new year, villainy is the way to approach it. I know this sounds odd, why be a villain when we can be a hero? The thing is, the modern hero (Marvel, DC, etc) tends to have more flaws than the classical hero. However, modern-day villains show traits that are admirable and comparable to the heroes of great literature. So in this article, I’m going to show you three things to adopt from a modern-day villain when preparing for the new year. They are:
Personal Mission
Personal Integrity
Not afraid to start over
1. Personal Mission
The modern-day villains have such a clear mission in their lives. For Magneto it was destroying non-mutants, for the Joker it was causing chaos, I can keep going. Every villain you see today has a clear Why.
Even if their Why doesn’t make sense, you know they have one.
Yet, with the new year here, what’s our Why? Is this going to be another year where we collect a paycheck, do the same activities, hang out with the same friends? Not really thinking about why we are spending our limited time.
You can’t live your life randomly anymore.
You need to be like a villain and create a personal mission. Whether this mission is born out of pain like Magneto, or out of revenge like Harry Osborn (New Green Goblin), whatever. Find a personal mission to dedicate the rest of your life to.
Now some of you might think that this is not possible for your current stage at life. But here is the thing about a personal mission: It can change!
It’s not uncommon for these modern-day villains to change their missions. So remember that. So to wrap up this section, here are a few simple personal missions to help you brainstorm:
Financial freedom
Creating an organization to help the underprivileged.
To become a world-class public speaker.
Life is too precious to not have any direction.
You only have one shot at it and it’s on you to decide the direction of it. Every villain has a direction and it’s time you need one too. But in addition to a life direction, villains oddly enough, have integrity.
2. Personal Integrity
I understand that it’s weird to see villains and integrity used in the same sentence. Obviously, we know that villains are not well-intentioned and to not be trusted. But that being said, let’s look at one interpretation of integrity: Living in accordance with your deepest values
Villains live according to their deeply held values.
And they will rarely let go of them for any reason. They don’t budge for romance, wealth, or whatever thing that can tempt the normal human being.
Villains consult their values on a daily basis and ensure they are living by them. For instance, you see the Joker in The Dark Knight burn a mountain of cash because wealth was not part of his values. Or Killmonger not taking the easy route of being the leader of Wakanda, since he had grander plans. As you can see, villains are willing to sacrifice for their values.
Yet, how many of us are willing to sacrifice for our values? Or on second thought, how many of us even have values to live by?
This is why villains have integrity.
They have their deeply held values and are willing to live by them at whatever cost. Again, I’m not going to leave you hanging. So let’s take a look at an example of values to live by so you can start having some personal integrity.
Self-respect
NoFap
Respect in all relationships
Minimal life drama
Joy over happiness
You get the idea.
These values will give your day-to-day living direction, so you don’t lose sight of what’s important to you. And in some cases, these values will be there for you when you start over in life again.
3. Not afraid of starting over
One thing about villains that I absolutely respect is how they are not afraid to start over. I mean, they can be defeated, watching everything they worked for burn up in flames. Yet, this doesn’t deter them from recuperating, building back up, and getting ready to unleash their potential.
The only reason that villains can have the gall to build back from nothing is due to their personal mission and values. These two seemingly forgettable things reinforce the direction that villains want to live their lives. That’s why no matter how many times the superheroes defeat villains, they keep coming back, never giving the heroes a break.
You see this with the Joker, Magneto, Loki, etc.
It’s easy to start over when you know what you want and where you are going. It’s only scary to start over when you have no deeply held values or personal mission. That being said, some of you are probably thinking that approaching life like a villain is…well, a little evil.
Listen, I’m not saying to build an army and attack a city.
It’s more so to take the admirable traits of villains and apply it to our lives. Because when you see villains, they have confidence, they don’t care what others think of them, they are not afraid of conflict. And above all, they are the sole judge of themselves and life.
There is no honor in living a timid life.
A life where there is no challenge, no conviction, no sense of self. Just because you’re good doesn’t mean it’s honorable.
You can live a good and honorable life. It’s just that the honorable part requires you to be consciously involved in how you want to live life. Instead of being passively fed these values from the media. You are choosing what you want in life and where you want to go. The best example of someone who turned rogue for the better is Colby Covington.
So here is the back story.
Colby is an elite welterweight MMA fighter in the UFC. And there was a time when he was on a four or five fight winning streak when the UFC told him he was a boring fighter. And since the fans didn’t care about him, they were going to release him.
Think about that for a second.
You choose an unforgivable career in MMA. Train for years to get signed by the UFC. Train even harder to be a championship contender. And you behave respectfully inside and outside the UFC. Yet, you get released due to not commanding the attention of fickle fans.
As a result, Colby decided to turn heel and become the most hated UFC fighter on the roster. In this heel act, he would say borderline racist things, make fun of fighters in the most vulgar ways, and just overall be a dick whenever on a UFC stage.
And as weird as this may be, Colby is my favorite fighter. He wanted a career in MMA, so he did whatever it took to not only have one but to have a successful one. Because of this heel act, he not only commands attention but gets paid handsomely. He still trains hard, but he needed to become a villain in the UFC to further his MMA career.
I would do the same.
Again, it all comes down to what you are willing to sacrifice for your mission and values. For Colby, his mission to be the best welterweight MMA fighter and his value of success are what give him direction in managing his career.
Now some of you reading this will be inspired by villains.
So you’ll start building world domination plans and this may involve turning into a huge jerk.
But don’t do this.
You don’t have to be a jerk to adopt some villainous traits. You can still be a great person, but you are just more focused when it comes to life.
Nobody likes jerks. So don’t think that you can only reach your goals by stepping on others. This will only lead to people retaliating and destroying your plans. So for clarity, just adopt villainous traits without turning into an evil villain in the process.
Alright, with that out of the way, let’s hop on to the summary.
To approach the new year, you want to do it like a villain. This involves having a personal mission, personal integrity, and not being afraid to start over. A personal mission will give your life a clear direction of what you want. Personal integrity ensures that in your day-to-day living, you do it with your deeply held values. As for not being afraid to start over, a personal mission and integrity will give you the confidence to start over when things don’t work out. Adopting some traits of a villain does not mean you are living life in an evil way. We only want to adopt the honorable traits of villains. A simple possible mistake when adopting the traits of villains is turning into a jerk. You don’t have to be a jerk chasing your goals, just be honorable and good.
I hope this article gives you some clarity.
We have to be able to give the new year, and really, the rest of our lives a specific direction. Otherwise, we won’t know where we are going. And oh yeah, just promise me to not go all crazy like Magneto and try to destroy us non-mutants.
Bulcha
The Charismatic Nerd