The Sad Sinner

Everyone finds themselves playing the villain at some point in their lives. This discovery changes a person at their core, for better or for worse. First, they arrive at a place of higher self-awareness, with age and more life experience-most likely through their relationship with others or other things (can there be a villain without some sort of victim?). Then, they must choose whether they like what they’ve become. Most people want to be the hero, as is the product of popular media, education, and expected parenting. Thus, the disclosure of their villain characterization is often somewhat life-shattering. Pain arises from the realization that they’ve been hurting the people around them and the utter truth that they are not who they thought they were-or want to be.

Cup Runneth Over

Everyone has negative traits. It is when these traits impact others, however, that leads to proper villain status. We all have issues, but we don’t need to make them other people’s problems. It is one thing to ask for help, but it is another to put your burden on the back of another (have you already done this by asking for help..?). Bearing these negative traits, perhaps it is only inevitable that they spill over. And maybe that’s the only way that you would know you need to change. If you let the spillage persist and spill your drink onto not one, but multiple people at the bar, then you’re probably encroaching on villain territory. Some of your loved ones, or even random people on the street, will bear your problems out of their love (or pity) for you-or maybe they simply just don’t know how to help. Others, though, might not be so kind when it’s the fifth time you haven’t picked up a check after a meal.

Editing Your Voter Card

When you know you are causing others pain and you make no move to change, you’re probably an asshole. Maybe you just don’t care, maybe you underestimate your impact on others-most likely a combination of the two-which would serve as a testament to your current villain status. Maybe you don’t know how to change-it should go without saying that learning how to change is the first move towards change (symbolically this is you putting your monopoly thimble on GO). Change won’t happen if you don’t know how unless some force makes you change, and in that case the change has largely been in vain because you didn’t learn from it and can’t move in a straight line in the absence of said force acting on you. And maybe that’s why your loved ones let you persist in your ways-real positive change requisites organic inspiration that is exclusively yours. An authoritative structure can certainly be constructive, but here you’ve forfeited your independent power for some other clown that thinks they know what they’re doing. You have transcended hero/villain status and registered yourself as the victim. Learning and knowing how to change is empowering yourself with the tools you need for your future. The next step is willingness, which should be valued against the pain you’ve been causing the people around you.

The Benefit of the Doubt: A Phrase that Doesn’t Seem to Make Much Snese

The evil that has been fueling your ways wears many masks and is probably the most important thing to understand in order to move towards change. There are reasons why you are here and not there, and there are reasons that you do the things that you do. Surely you began this path with good intentions, your younger self was pure and light-hearted -I mean c’mon look at that family photo on the wall! A simple action has compounded into a habit, a behavior. The behavior compounded even more, rendering the dastardly character that you now wake up to and see in the mirror every morning. You ask yourself “when did this happen?” The truth is not that it occurred with the first episode of the action, the truth is that with repetition the action has earned from you a significance different than it first was without much of a notice. You continued to value the action as you first had, ignoring the fact that it has begun to claim part of your character.

Narratives of the Familiar Villain

When you were young you learned you had to be selfish sometimes to get what you want out of life so you moved to compete for everything on the table when you could (which was in fact sometimes of course). Then one day you find everyone at your company hates you for failing to equitably distribute profits and calls you a greedy asshole. No wonder your coworker Cindy didn’t want to go on that date with you. At least you have a studio apartment in the Upper East Side. #Single.

On a hectic day in middle school, you learned that the other kids were going to fight for that last slice of pizza so the following pizza day you refrained from the polite social etiquette that your angel of a mother taught you and snatched it right up. You weren’t going to be the victim of this pizza scheme, that would surely don your placement at the bottom of the pecking order. After attending a record twelve birthday parties in the eighth grade, you proved worthy of the moniker “pizza boy” and found yourself overweight and far too out of shape to play freshman football. Maybe you’ll try again sophomore year.

After popping the cherry on doing something for the first time, you justify the repetition with the same reasoning with which you began, but now it is studded with whatever jargon your primal brain can conjecture. When you started your NYC gig you were broke and living in a shoebox, but now you disregard whether you need the money and say to yourself: “these people would do the same thing if they were in my position.” In the past you left pizza day hungry, but now you ignore your already-stuffed stomach and say to yourself: “pizza day only comes once a week.. If I don’t go for it, Sam will and fuck that guy.” Your primitive brain pounces on opportunity via questionable competition and social toss-ups, which are the low-hanging fruits of this world. Just as a drunk mother/father does in trying to quell and numb their pains every night, they get ahead in feeling good but are left behind in fulfillment as veritable parents and well-rounded people. The NYC finance guy first seems like a go-getter and a high achiever, the pizza boy first seems like a competitor amongst the herd of prepubescent boys his class, the parent first seems like a fun parent. They all have unfortunately left a part of themselves behind in the wake of their actions and become something they had never originally intended.

High Tea with The Devil

The bittersweet truth is a hero and villain live in all of us (take yourself to your local precinct, an empty cell will be waiting for you there). The threshold between the two is virtually invisible and only reveals itself with time. Despite starting with good intention, both the finance guy and the pizza boy ran aground in their plights on the rocky beach of fate. It is a tenet of life that almost all good things become bad in excess, just as many bad things are, or can be, good in moderation. Just as a mantra is not foolproof-it will yield suffering given the right conditions. Self-awareness of our actions (or inaction, which should be noted is a decision) amongst this pool full of fleshy beings is perhaps paramount in putting a pen to paper to writing a modern hero tale. In a money-driven society we must strive to secure our own livelihood, but we cannot destroy that of our neighbor, especially if we want to ask them out on a date. Indulging to the point of excess blesses you with beautiful love handles, but still often robs another of a full stomach and you of your friends, poise, and a shot of making freshman football. Although not romanticized like many canonical figures, these characters are the everyday villains that we live with. They have prioritized themselves through their actions and greater lack of consideration for others and have found a lonely stoop waiting for them. For many, the pain of this position should be a spark for change-a life alone surely is a life short-lived. How much pain must we cause the people in our lives before we realize that we have already become the villain? How much do we care about them? A single symbolic gesture revealing our willingness to change is more powerful than we can realistically imagine. It should be noted, though, the people in your life likely don’t want you to be the hero (by rule of basic natural competition), but they probably don’t want to witness your villain origin story even more. There will always be villains amongst us. You will find yourself a villain at some point if you haven’t already. And that is life. Some may embody it, some may persecute themselves for it, and some may spend their entire lives running from it. It only takes one step to move in the right direction-or the wrong direction for that matter. Take a deep breath and try to have a conversation with the demons that reside in you.