Life Lessons From Bojack Horseman

I have already gone enough gaga about Bojack in the past, somehow I keep coming back to it again in several situations of my own life. Bojack is the most deep and profound series I have ever watched with a realistic take on several issues like depression, insecurities, self-sabotage, addictions and many more. 

 

Here are few things I learnt from Bojack Horseman :

• You could have had your days of glory in the past, but it's in the past, it doesn't guarantee a bright future or even a good present.
• You can end up living most of your life stuck in the past. Blaming your parents, upbringing, society, mean friends, cruel world - you can always outsource your misery and failures on to someone else's deeds in the past. They may have done you wrong, but it doesn't help to blame everything and be hung over on it.
• Many people have that abusive voice in their heads, that won't stop scrutinizing and criticizing every move they make.
• People aren't absolutely evil or absolutely good. Often, the seemingly evil actions are unintentional results of subtle actions/lack of actions - not being reliable to your people, stuck in your own bubble, not taking a stand, selfishness, negligence, lack of empathy etc.
  
• You just don't overhaul your life overnight. It's a long process that may take up several years. Also, it's never a linear upward growth, it's mostly going in loops, taking five steps back for every step you take forward, learning and relapsing. If you stick with it, however, this not so straight line, can in fact look up over long term.
• The best people of your life can drag you down, as they don't want you to change - they are only familiar with the person you are now and resist the changes you are trying to bring into your life, impacting them or the good times you share, as a side effect.
• Just because you have changed into this good person now doesn't mean that your past will be neutralized. Your actions in the past will catch up to you when everything seems to be going great. Just because you are good now, your past sins won't be nullified magically.
• Sadness and depression can happen to anyone - the chirpy extrovert or the silent introvert.
• Depression can lurk under shadows, often going unnoticed.
• The miraculous "turning around your life and finally living the best version of yourself, to your best potential" may never happen for many of us.
• Bad habits and addictions aren't cute or fashionable and can drag you down to hell. Many things like hangovers, getting high, hungover on the one that got away etc are portrayed as good/harmless kind of eccentric traits in movies and books unfortunately.
• Despite your best intentions, you may end up hurting your best people.
• Not everyone is supposed to stay in your life forever, even if both of you care about each other.
• Healthy relationship boundaries can save the relationship.
• There's a tipping point to everything. When you ignore enough warning signs, one day, it may seem like people are just abandoning you out of the blue.
• You can be your worst enemy, worst saboteur. This is what addicts often do, fearing the ultimate failure after huge efforts and time spent, they instead relapse and fail quickly - it's easy to do this, as that's the expectation of everyone from you, including yourself.
• You may work on yourself consistently for a year and yet throw it all down the drain in a minute.
• Your folks may love you and yet never like you.
• You may never like yourself or the person you have become. You may hate yourself to the point that you can't stand yourself.
• Turning points of your life often go unnoticed, they don't come with glaring neon signs and loud trumpets. You, landing up a big job can be less impactful in your overall life than a text message you have sent carelessly.
• You never know what's going in peoples lives. Not everyone exhibits the telltale signs of being in a dark place. Someone may be trying to fix up others lives and be the person who actually needs help.
• You may not get closure in many important things of your life.
  
• You may not get forgiveness from someone you have hurt, just because you are sorry now.
• Happiness is elusive.
• You will fail to notice the red flags in a new relationship.
• You can't justify your current bad actions with bad past.
• If unchecked, you may fall down way beyond the limits your 8 year old self can ever imagine.
• Your intentions and remorse aren't enough, your actions matter.
• Let go of toxic people, even if you care about them.
• Self pity does you no good.
• Your expectations of an ideal self can burden you and lead to a complete dissatisfied life full of guilt and disappointment with yourself.
• You need to be consistently dependable for your relationships to work, occasional grand gestures aren't enough.
• Just knowing your own negative traits isn't enough.
• The only way is to keep living forward.
• You may take your people for granted, but they are all you have got in this big cruel world.
• You never know what your calling could be and it may not even happen until late in your life.
• Don't push your luck too much.
• No matter who it is, don't give any person power to control and impact your life so much.
• Slow paced quiet life may not be for everyone - to each their own.
• Relationships may work if we work on them, but sometimes, we can just get tired of all the effort we need to put to just keep it existent.
• Sometimes, you need to move away from everyone and everything that has been keeping the way you are and start over again.