This is one of the cool things when you have a 21 years younger brother: you have an excuse to watch all this amazing kid movies without justifying yourself to anybody!
So I was watching Kung Fu Panda with him…
And the even better part is that when you look closely enough you realize how much you can take away from these movies. The movies are actually pretty smart and the characters are often pretty deep.
They can teach you so much.
Like in this one scene where Po realizes that there is no secret ingredient to become the Dragon Warrior. This one definitely made me go “Aaah” for a second or two.
“You are not the Dragon Warrior. You will never be the Dragon Warrior until you have learned the secret of the Dragon Scroll.”, said Master Shifu to Po.
But then Po finds out that there is no secret.
“There is no secret ingredient…”
It was all a myth. A lie.
And he realizes that all the stuff that people were telling him for all his life – stuff he also slowly began to believe for himself as well – were actually NOT true. The things they said about why he is not good enough and why he cannot do it and why he will never succeed… all these things were meaningless for the whole time.
He realized he can be the Dragon Warrior right away. In this very moment.
There is nothing to learn. There is nothing to gain. It’s our own mind which got in our way first.
Isn’t it cool that all the stuff we tell ourselves on why something cannot be done… or why some things cannot be changed… or why some things just ARE the way they are… all this actually is not true?
“Aaah…”
Sometimes we have to let go of our old story to write a new one.
Pretty empowering thought…
Coming from a not so smart-looking duck.
Mr. Ping: “The secret ingredient is… nothing!”
Po: “Huh?”
Mr. Ping: “You heard me. Nothing! There is no secret ingredient.”
Po: “Wait, wait… it’s just plain old noodle soup? You don’t add some kind of special sauce or something?”
Mr. Ping: “Don’t have to. To make something special you just have to believe it’s special.”
[Po looks at the scroll again, and sees his reflection in it]
Po: “There is no secret ingredient…”
