There’s a lot of truth in the stories we make up. In interviews with “busy” people, you’ll sometimes hear them say that they don’t have time for fiction. They just read the factual. I’m very suspicious of those with this philosophy. Not only are all stories made up to some extent, but those who don’t have time for it are missing the lessons and empathy that come from fiction.
So for my 30th birthday, I’ve gathered 30 lessons I’ve taken from popular movies, TV shows and books.
30 For 30: Lessons I Learned from Stories (You Might Know)
1. The Muppets
It doesn’t take a lot to make the world a better place. In fact, it can start with a frog made out of a tennis ball and an old coat.
2. Tom Sawyer
A lot of other people’s expectations are based on your reactions. If you want people to think that painting a fence is fun, then have fun painting a fence.
3. Yertle the Turtle
My Dad used to read us Six by Seuss, and each story had a message that’s stuck with me. I often think about the ending of this book when the Yertle the Turtle falls off of his tower of turtles and becomes king of the mud.
4. Nickelodeon’s Doug as Quailman
As I distinctly remember Doug’s Dad saying, “Show me a man who resorts to violence, and I’ll show you a man who has run out of good ideas.” Doug successfully thwarts his bully by adopting the stature of his alter-ego “Quailman” and bending the rules of your average fight.
5. The Dark Knight
“Because some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.” —Alfred to Bruce Wayne
6. Seinfeld: Rental Car
Anyone can commit. That’s not the hard part. Jerry Seinfeld at a rental car counter: “See, you know how to take the reservation, you just don’t know how to hold the reservation. And that’s really the most important part of the reservation, the holding. Anybody can just take them.”
7. The Odyssey
Finding your way home can sometimes be the story itself.
8. Back to the Future
The ultimate advice for anyone staring off into the future. “Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”
9. The North Wind and the Sun
In a contest documented as one of Aesop’s fables, the wind’s brute force cannot make a man remove his jacket. It is only through the love and warmth of the sun that the man takes off his jacket.
10. High Fidelity
“What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?”
11. The Wizard of Oz
There are many lessons in the Wizard of Oz. Here’s one: the characters who seek out power (the Wizard and the Wicked Witch) are thwarted. Everyone else succeeds in their quests toward virtue and belonging on the Yellow Brick Road.
12. To Kill a Mockingbird
A quote that seems truer the older I’ve gotten from Atticus Finch. “You rarely win, but sometimes you do.”
13. Toy Story
Leading doesn’t always require you to be the favorite.
14. Adventureland
As someone who worked at a job similar to an amusement park, this movie really captures everything that can happen in the in-between places of life.
15. The Chronicles of Narnia
The lamppost exists in Narnia because the White Witch brings it with her into the world. However, it becomes the guiding light of Narnia.
16. Superbad
I often repeat the advice the cops gave to McLovin’. Don’t meet women at bars. Go to a farmer’s market or pumpkin patch, depending on the season.
“Yeah, I met the missus at paintball” —Officer Slater
17. The Graveyard Book
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman is like the Jungle Book except the boy is raised by ghosts, witches and his Vampire Guardian instead of jungle animals. “Does it work? Are they happier dead?” “Sometimes. Mostly, no. It’s like the people who believe they’ll be happy if they go and live somewhere else, but who learn it doesn’t work that way. Wherever you go, you take yourself with you. If you see what I mean.”
18. Mary Poppins
Sometimes the best leaders are the ones who go about their work in a roundabout way. To save the parents, you first have to save the children. I think this is the point of most children’s stories.
19. Wuthering Heights
Revenge can be the work of a lifetime; in that, it can take your life with it.
20. Finding Nemo
Offer your help, even if you can’t remember who you’re helping at times.
21. How I Met Your Mother
On the Finale… Don’t promise that your show is about one thing, “How I Met Your Mother,” and then reveal at the end that the show was actually about something else.
22. Harry Potter
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” —Dumbledore
23. The Music Man
Don’t con people because you might fall in love with one of them.
24. Star Wars
To me, the defining moment in Star Wars is when Luke Skywalker and company free Han Solo from Jabba the Hut. Up until that point, everyone had Han’s charisma to lean on. With Han out of commission, Luke has to become the leader and the Jedi he needs to be to restore balance to the galaxy.
25. Alice in Wonderland
Be careful which rabbits you chase.
26. Citizen Kane
A life lived for your own selfish gains may build you a palace, but that palace becomes your tomb.
27. Hey Arnold!
The show’s premise was that Arnold had a football-shaped head and lived in New York City. However, behind the comedy and complicated plots, the show covered complex themes on morality, family and loss. In Hey Arnold, the stories mattered a lot, and that’s a lesson worth covering within kids’ television.
28. The Good Place
A television show is more valuable than an Introduction to Philosophy course. My professor for that course didn’t show up a lot, and those were the good days of class. We need more entertainment to explore concepts like Moral Philosophy.
29. F. Scott Fitzgerald
My takeaway from Fitzgerald’s work was that there is a price to pursuing glamor and status. It may appear that you have a perfect life, but the pressure of being one of the “beautiful ones” is what damns your soul.
30. Bugs Bunny, “This Means War!”
One of the many great lessons of Bugs Bunny is to never fire the first shot. Even though he always has the upper hand, Bugs Bunny only gets involved when he’s provoked. Not only does this infuriate your enemies, but it allows you not to take problems too seriously.