 So my son and I just got back from DC's latest movie Shazam and I wanted to sit down and make this video because there's something really important that everybody missed. What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution and if you're new to my channel, my channel is all about mental health and sometimes what I like to do is pull different topics from movies, TV shows, pop culture and all that kind of stuff to try to teach you how to improve your mental and emotional well-being. So if any of that make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. So yeah we will be talking about Shazam today and there will be some spoilers. So if you haven't seen the movie yet you might want to turn this video off come back later but if you don't plan on seeing the movie there's some very valuable lessons in this video that we're going to be discussing. Alright so in Shazam you got Shazam. Alright so Shazam is a superhero who is a kid named Billy who ends up getting these powers but originally Dr. Savanna he was the one chosen or one of the people chosen to possibly get the powers of Shazam. So the movie starts off with where we see Dr. Savanna as a child and his name's Thad and you could tell that you know his father and his brother they think he's weak they think he's not going to amount to anything and all of that and when Thad misses out on the opportunity becomes Shazam that becomes his driving force in life that becomes his ultimate desire he wants to gain this power and then we see once he gets the power of the seven sins he goes back gets a little revenge on his dad and his brother and all that right but then he still wants more he wants the power of Shazam. So Billy on the other hand he has a different driving force and that's to find his mother. So when Billy was a kid he got separated from his mom and now he's just been bouncing from foster home foster home and he's constantly on this search for his mother so his ultimate desire is trying to find his mom connect with her and have his actual family. Now something that we need to take a look at and it's really important to take like dive into these movies and and see like I think superhero movies like comic book movies they're really important because especially when when you take a look at this right when you take a look at two different people and one goes on a good path one goes on a bad path and you see that a lot of them struggle with similar things but one of them just went down the wrong path but what I want to focus on in this video is desire okay. So what we find especially when Billy finds his actual mother and he goes and finds her and he finds out that she actually left him she left him with the police because she figured that the police would find him a better home and do something you know he would be raised by a family that could do much better than her and Billy was absolutely heartbroken by that right but when it comes to ourselves like I'm really into like philosophy and meditation and all sorts of things and in both Buddhist philosophy as well as in stoicism they they both talk a lot about desire being one of the root causes of suffering all right so in Buddhist philosophy they talk about the hungry ghost and a lot of us part of you know the human condition is being this hungry ghost where we're constantly trying to fill ourselves up but if you imagine a ghost eating it just it just goes out right and this is something that we're always trying to do we we have this desire whether it's you know money or a job or house or a car or a relationship but the problem is is that we always want more like you can look at it in the you know in the realm of youtube right always wanting more views more subscribers more likes all these things and it's like when is enough and what we find is is that sometimes that path of desire can ultimately lead us to more suffering and this is something that I find happens to a lot of people so when you look at Billy for example his ultimate desire was to reconnect with his mom not saying that that's a bad thing but you know sometimes once we reach that thing that we're looking for we find that it's not what we expected right like for example a lot of people work their bus off and they're trying to get higher and higher and higher up in their company and they're constantly wanting more you know I've been guilty of this in the past too I always want you know a better position better money all these other things but with everything that comes along there's always a chance of new stresses like even if right now I handed you a million dollars right and you went out and got you know houses cars vacations all these other things with everything that you purchase there's going to be new stresses and the problem is when we're constantly trying to find these external things to fill us up oftentimes we find that we're still empty in the end all right but what's the solution what's the solution to this so in both Buddhist philosophy as well as in stoicism like there's a few things that we can do to help manage this desire and in in the aspect of Shazam one of them is acceptance all right so when we look at Billy's character and he's constantly trying to leave all of these foster homes and like you got to imagine like when he's working with the social worker and talking to her and like he's not exactly a hot commodity when it comes to people who want to bring him in as a foster child and and that's the thing Billy is so focused on finding his mother that he doesn't even give any of these families a chance but at the end of the movie what we see is he finally gets into acceptance right and for some of us we need to we need to get that ultimate desire just to realize that we were fine just the way things were all along so at the end when we see Billy sit back down at the table with the other foster kids and his two foster parents like he's finally in this acceptance where he's like this is my family and that was kind of an overarching theme uh our overarching theme throughout the entire movie was accepting this is his family this is his home this is just what he needs to work on this is what he should be putting his efforts in I could really relate to that character of Billy so while I wasn't a foster child you know I I grew up and I had an alcoholic mom but I I lived with my dad my dad was constantly working and one of the issues is when we when we fall prey to desire and we're constantly seeking and seeking and seeking like what we're doing is we're fighting against the current of life right we're not in acceptance so like when I was growing up I wanted my life to be any way than it was right then right I wanted my mom to be there I wanted my mom to be sober I wanted my dad to work less I wanted them in my life you know what I mean but very luckily like I had really good friends who became somewhat like a family but you know although I was a kid part of it was you know I was never talked to just accept things the way they are so I was still in misery I didn't know how to appreciate and and be even more grateful for what was being handed to me because I remember even going over to my friends houses and things like that for holidays and my friend's family always being there for me you know I was constantly thinking about what I didn't have rather than accepting what was right there in front of me and being grateful for it and speaking of gratitude gratitude is the other way that we kind of overcome this this desire that's kind of messing up our minds that's something that I found because a lot of us I'm just being real with you like from my experience talking with a bunch of other people even my own experience a lot of us are very entitled and ungrateful all right we were not we're never grateful for what we do have we always want more and this is one of the issues with just living in kind of like a capitalist society right because we're always trying to work to get the next thing to get the next thing right rather than being grateful for what we do have like I was uh I'm currently reading this book on stoicism and something um that it was mentioning today in the book um when I was reading it exactly a chapter on desire maybe that's why it's in the forefront of my mind is if you want to be grateful for the things you have imagine having none of it right like imagine not even having what you do have because sometimes our brain gets so focused on what we don't have we forget about how valuable the things we do have actually are and what they mean to us and it doesn't even have to be material things like it doesn't have to be this computer behind me doesn't have to be the camera I'm recording I don't have to be the microphone I'm using doesn't have to be my phone it could be you know my son who I just got to go and see this movie with and then we get to go play fortnight you know after I'm done recording and uploading this right I have my beautiful girlfriend I have my family I have my friends right so sometimes the way I kind of snap back into gratitude is just to remember that I could have none of these things like it's kind of messed up to say or to even think but sometimes you know when when we see others who don't have what we have it gets us into that gratitude when I was at one of my lowest points in life one of the best suggestions I ever got was Chris when all you can do is sit in self pity and think about the things that you don't have call someone else on the phone and ask them how they're doing right and the more I did that like my problems they didn't seem like anything at all like maybe just like something dumb happened that day like maybe a family member said something to take me off then like I would just randomly call a friend and just say hey I just want to see how you're doing and then something you know something awful is going on in their lives maybe they just lost a job with a significant other lost a job maybe a family member was fallen ill or whatever that is and it helps me get back into gratitude but not only does it help me be grateful but it also allows me to be there for other people and this is one of the best ways to feel good and to feel better about yourself right for all the time we spend spending thinking about what we don't have when we're able to be a service to other people we find this usefulness that that we don't usually have right because we're constantly stuck in this cycle of gimme gimme gimme gimme gimme so even just by picking up the phone or even like texting somebody and saying hey how are you doing it allows us to get out of self and start really really really being happy with where we're at in this moment all right but anyways let me know down in the comments below if you fall prey to desire if you're constantly somebody searching for the next thing and the next thing and the next thing if you saw Shazam let me know your thoughts down below my son thinks it's gonna be better than Avengers we'll see on that one though all right but anyways that's all I got for this video if you liked this video please give it a thumbs up if you're new make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell because I'll make a ton of videos and a huge huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on patreon you're all amazing and if you would like to get access to exclusive patreon perks and benefits you can click or tap right there all right thanks so much for watching I'll see you next time