This weekend I finally sat down and watched 10 Cloverfield Lane. It’s a sequel of sorts to Cloverfield, the 2008 movie that started off the new wave of found footage movies (Seriously — 7 Paranormal Activities later and they’re still not done yet).

For those of you who haven’t watched it, Cloverfield was about an alien invasion in New York. Twist: you never really saw the giant monster, just all the destruction it left in it’s wake rampaging through the city. In that way, the story of the characters was even more compelling because you never knew what would actually kill them.

That fear of survival picks up in 10 Cloverfield Lane — where a woman ends up in a bunker with two men claiming that the world has ended after a chemical attack. That’s all the details you get, and their interpersonal dynamics of paranoia and fear drive the narrative. It’s a post-apocalyptic story at its finest — the world’s over and now we have the chance to start anew, using our brains and survival skills to end up on top. Some people are crazy, and who knows what’s actually going down. There’s guns, gas masks, and a whole lot of fire.

Watching the movie — I was totally onboard with the end of the world vibe.

My favorite game as a kid was Fallout 3, where you play a character that emerges from a bunker after a nuclear war, and you have complete freedom to do whatever you want. Want to be a hero and save the world, or just blow shit up and rob the innocent? It’s your choice, and the only thing stopping you is what you’re willing to discover. Hundreds of hours of adventures, people to meet, and things to do. What’s not to love?

Fallout 4 — source: kotaku.com

There’s tons of science fiction movies where the lone survivor finds himself in a new world and becomes a legend. Mad Max, Snake Plisskin, and Will Smith all represent heroes taking on the world alone. They fight through willpower and moral values. Don’t we all want to be the hero going around the world kicking ass and taking names?

Then I stopped and thought for a moment.

What’s stopping us now?

Why do we need the idea of a post-apocalyptic world to try and make a change in our lives? The world doesn’t need to end for us to rise to the top and do awesome things — you can create that fresh start right there in your head. Sure, it’s not easy to track metrics of success like experience points in a game, but if you put in the effort, you rise.

You have your own willpower, your values that guide you, and more resources than you’d ever have if the internet went kaput.

So this is a call to action: to take on life. I’m still trying to get there, so I figure I might as well encourage a couple people along the way. Don’t slip into mediocrity, or hope for the world to completely change in order to live out your fantasies of being a hero — lift some weights, read some books, and get cracking on changing the world around you.

And if you fail?

Hey, it’s not the end of the world.