105: Never Give Up! Never Surrender! | Captain Influence

For the second week in a row we're glad to welcome back Tony, aka Captain Influence! In our typical Superhero Friday fashion, we've got the fun and we've got the serious, but this week we want to circle back to reminding each other of how important it is for the two to overlap from time to time. We're a people of extremes, aren't we? We tend toward extremes and finding a balance can be our primary focus in life. But it's exhausting, isn't it? Sometimes we just have to take the fun when there is fun, take the serious when it calls for serious, and not force either when they seem a little too far out of reach.

In This Episode

• Welcome back, Tony!
• Dirrrty chai
• Weekend of gaming and junky food
• Show for the Almost Famous!
• We all want to be someone
• Alien Isolation
• Moosik

Never Surrender

Realizations about the somebody we are trying to be can come in spurts over a long period of time. We learn a little bit more about ourselves, then express that part of ourself to the world. When we express ourselves, we unconsciously gauge reactions to our personality and those reactions can either make us retreat inward and stay the way we've always been or make us change ourselves. Neither reaction is wrong, they're both very natural, but one of the things we love to celebrate here at the Real Brian Show is the fact that you can continue be who you are in spite of the reactions from others if who you are is who you want to be.

Brian talks about being a somebody to other somebodies and how discouraging that can be when we're not immediately accepted. Changing ourselves to be accepted by someone else is still a rejection. We reject ourselves. Continual improvement, betterment, increase in emotional intelligence... these are all good things and I do not want to draw a fine line at never changing ever! Change is good, but changing to meet the expectations of others or because of someone else's dissatisfaction is not the good kind of change!

In our society which is quickly being eaten up by social media we seem to have reverted to a middle school mentality of pleasing others by striving to meet ineffable qualities and standards. The qualities and standards are subjective and fluctuate based on someone's mood or someone's circumstances. We like to celebrate individuality and having fun and nerding out while simultaneously exploring the realness of life because it only seems to be then that we start to capture the full picture of life.

Links

• Wild Nothing: Paradis (Tony's Neo-80s fad)
• Community: Pierce You're a B
• Great Harvest Bread