Are the Protagonist or the Antagonist in your story?
The point here, to consider, is the capacity to create your character the way you envision them to be and what traits they embody.
A protagonist is a hero. They are the champion, the one who overcomes hurdles and survives insurmountable odds. They save the day!
The antagonist, on the other hand, is the adversary. They inhibit the strength of the protagonist at every opportunity. They set up roadblocks, encase the castle, and send down the troops to stop the champion from arriving and saving the day.
The hero of the story of your life, gets to be the one who wakes up and takes up the sword for you.
They go to battle against great odds, such as depression, exhaustion, and illnesses in which the body seems to succumb.
You, the greatest hero of them all, rises up and fights until there is only sleep, and then, in dreams, you, the hero, fights demons, darkness, and traumas as they try to steal your rest away.
You get to own the actor in your dreams, just like you own the actor in your day life. Does it sound positive to you?
The nightmares, demons (things in our past), and fears are the antagonists who wreak havoc on our life. They come in so many forms. From someone whispering negative things about us or to us, to our own negative voice in our head, ruminating about the things we cannot change in our lives.
Onward they drag our hearts and minds, and we, the protagonist, forget we are the hero, and for a time, we fall victim to the antagonists.
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Rising up! Back on My Feet
Silvester Stallone wrote Rocky and sought ways to produce it, with the one request for himself to play the protagonist. It was turned down, over and over. Until he finally had to sell his dog in order to eat. His beloved friend.
When the movie made money, he went back to buy the dog, only to find the owner not willing to sell. He upped the price. Again, and again he raised how much he would give to get his doggy back. The final cost, $10,000 and a spot in his film. He had sold the dog for a small sum and paid a large sum to reclaim him.
What lengths will you go to save yourself? Many of us would walk away from the dog. Many of us could not get the money to get the dog back. Now, if we are the writers of our own show, then we can write in the storyline anything we want. What about our dreams, hopes, and wishes? Written down, they become goals. Ideas become the momentum for change.
“That was the catalyst for his idea: A man who was going to stand up to life, take a shot, and go the distance” S.S.
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Stand Up to Life, Take a Shot, and Go the Distance
What tribute! What a chance! And if the movie, Rocky shows anyone, anything, at any time, it is that even real-life events happen and dreams do come true.
What are you dreaming right now?
Standing up to life means you wake up one day and say, “Today, I take my life back.” And maybe, you make ONE change in how you do things. For instance, maybe you need to exercise, and you know you struggle with pain and are overweight.
So, one day, you decide to step up and take charge. You walk to the end of the room. The next day, you walk a little farther, and by the end of the week, you have walked to the door and down the driveway.
Every day, you take one, two, or more steps further than you did the day before.
Baby steps to change. Be excited for each step. It motivates you forward.
“The Japanese even have a word for it: kaizen, which literally means “continuous change.”
Take a shot! Aim your focus in the direction you want to go, and slowly move that direction. It might take you a year or two, however, one step at a time and you are doing what you only dreamed about yesterday.
Go the distance. The distance, the span of time, the length you’ll go in the direction of your dreams becomes the milestone of travel. What distance are you willing to move to get where you need to be?
Time, effort, and choice are the tools to get motivated.
We find ourselves short on time, mostly because we have not organized effectively how to use the time we are given. We waste away the time with silly games, social media, and hours talking or thinking about negative ideas and attitudes.
If we spent as much time creating positive thoughts, actions, and attitudes, we might find solutions to trouble and stress where negative actions and attitudes only hold us back.
Directions: Which Way Will Your Character Go?
The focus of your character creates another avenue in which to move. Maybe your character interchanges between the protagonist and the antagonist.
The protagonist takes the events in life and turns them into stepping stones. They lay those struggles down like solid steps along a murky pool of muck and move across the span until they reach dry land.
Every event is a new stone, laid, firmly down and used as a bridge to a better life.
The antagonist will cause the rain to pour down, and make the path difficult to maneuver. Your hero will need to struggle in the grime, building the path, while the rain pours down and the mud rises.
The hero, on their knees, drag stones from behind and places them in the correct spot so another step can be achieved.
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You are the author of your story. The antagonists arrived, in various forms, and created havoc. They were part of the storyline. You, though, becoming the hero/heroine of your story, is bequeathed the gift of a rewrite. The ending is your choice. Who are you writing for today and what do you want your end game to say?
~Just a thought by Pamela
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Previously published on Medium.com.
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Photo credit: Avel Chuklanov on Unsplash