You know, it's not about how you start, but how you finish.
You know, you're not responsible for your current circumstances,
but you are responsible for staying there.
And today we're going to look at a character who is the, you know, the perfect icon for this,
where they didn't let their circumstances keep them where they were.
They actually crawled up from the very bottom to get to the point where they're actually
one of the strongest characters to ever exist.
And of course, I'm talking about no one else but Son Goku.
Hey, what's going on guys? My name is Nate, and you're listening to the Otaku Liberation,
a show where we help you break free from the chains that are holding you back in your life
by connecting some biblical principles with themes from your favorite anime.
But without further ado, let's get right on into it.
Son Goku, Goku, Goku, Goku.
And if you've never heard of this character before, then I don't know where you've been the last,
what, 30 something years.
Because Goku is the main character of the Dragon Ball franchise.
You may have seen Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball Super, GT,
the OG Dragon Ball.
You know, any of that Goku is the main character and the main protagonist.
And like I said earlier, he is the definition of, started from the bottom, now he's here, right?
And looking at Goku's journey is really interesting because over just, again,
the last 30 some odd years or so, even more than that,
we've actually gotten to see his progression from being this quote unquote low class Saiyan
to being literally one of the strongest beings in the entire verse.
And it was not an easy role by any means for him.
I mean, he made it look easy because he's kind of a genius when it comes to this stuff, but
even with his natural talent with fighting and being able to get stronger, things like that,
he still had to work for it. He still had to work towards the goal of
just being stronger than what he already was.
And that's an homage to his incredible, incredible work ethic.
Because Goku has never been shy about working hard ever in his life.
Even when he was a kid, he first started training under Master Roshi, his first master.
And despite all the crazy training Roshi had him and Goku, his Goku's best friend Krillin doing,
Goku never complained. He did everything in stride, he did everything with a smile.
And he actually looked forward to the challenge, right?
Which I know for me, I'm still working on that aspect of looking forward to the challenge.
I know most of my life I've been pretty good about just stepping up to the challenge,
doing whatever it is I need to do to get stuff done.
But to be able to look forward to it, to the next thing, that's...
Yeah, I know Goku may be a little crazy about that. I'm not too sure.
But it's just really awe-inspiring, at least for me it is, right?
No matter what is happening, no matter how many setbacks he's had or he has to go through,
or he's gone through, I should say, Goku always keeps coming back for more.
Ready and willing for more at that. He's never shied away from any battle, any type of training,
any enemy. He's always ready. He's ready at all times.
And that is a superpower that I honestly wish I had, is just to be, you know, all right.
Oh, so I guess this bad thing's happening to me today? Okay.
I guess I'm stuck in traffic today. All right, whatever.
It's on to the next one. Let's keep going.
And just have that mindset about it.
No matter what's happening to you, you know you're going to accomplish your goal at the end of the
day. And it just... Oh, man. I'm maybe gushing a little bit because Dragon Ball is one of the
first animes I've ever watched. And I'm sure the same thing can be said for a lot of people out
there who watch anime. I'm sure Dragon Ball or maybe Sailor Moon, Inuyasha, you know,
Yu Yu Hakusho, some of those are probably the first ones that you've watched. And they kind of set
the tone and pace for everything that came after. And I mean, that's why Dragon Ball is kind of
considered the granddaddy of modern anime because it was really one of the first ones that made it
popular over here in the West. And honestly, I like the attribute to the fact that of characters
like Goku, right? Because I don't know how many Jim Montagos, you know, have watched anime.
But I think the gym montages I've seen where, you know, people have, you know, like some sand gear,
whether it's Goku or Vegeta, and just the whole never quit mentality. Because this mentality isn't
unique to Goku. It's in the entire race. But we see it more from him because he was born a low class
warrior, but he still had that tenacity to succeed. He... Not to the point where he'll win at all costs,
but he's going to push himself to the very limit in order to get to that next level. And that's
something that I wish more of us had, or at least more of us had access to, to get to that point,
right? And some of us may get there later on in our lives, but the earlier you start, the easier
it's going to be. And it doesn't mean it's going to be easy. It's just going to be a little easier.
And it really is all... It's just this mindset. Because again, we are our biggest enemies. We are
our biggest naysayers, our biggest obstacles. Are we... The only person I get in the way of your own
success is you. That's it. No one else can take it from you. No one else can really hinder you.
And if they are hindering you, it's because you're letting them in some form or fashion.
And really just getting that mindset, the mindset shifts to and say, okay, forget the excuses.
I'm going to tackle these obstacles head on and figure out a way to get past them.
At the end of the day, that's pretty much it, right? It's just figuring out how to get past
whatever object, whatever thing is holding you back, whatever thing is getting in your way.
You may not be getting held back. It just may be a bump in the road because life happens,
life throws us curve balls all the time. Nothing's ever a smooth road. But it's all in how you deal
with it. You can sit there, you can cry and complain about it. But at the end of the day,
complaining does nothing. Nothing's going to happen if you just complain about it.
It's probably not going to go away. You're not going to get any closer to your goal. You're just
sitting there wasting time and energy in all honesty. And so at least that's how I view it.
At least that's how I view it. That's just my own personal vision and how I view complaining
in general. I'd much rather spend that time and energy trying to come up with a plan to
move forward or you might have to pivot. Maybe you can't get past this obstacle right now.
Maybe it's something that just right now isn't the time for you to take that on. To me, you need to
pivot and have a shift a little. Not saying you have to go all the way back to the beginning,
but maybe you need to try a different way. You try something else. Just play around with it.
Just use some critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Because again,
that's a better use of our time than just complaining about it.
And for me, one of the company things I've always felt, one of the verses I always keep going back
to, and this one actually just speaks directly to Goku's whole work ethic thing is Philippians
chapter 4 verse 13. It says, I am able to do all things through him who strengthens me.
Short, sweet, to the point. Basically, we're able to do everything because we're connected to God,
we're connected to our purpose, we're connected to our source. And he can do everything. It says
we're connecting to him. That means we can do everything. Now, it may not look the same.
Actually, it's not going to look the same because we're not him, right? We can't just
snap our fingers and have stuff done. But that's where the faith comes in, right? The faith comes
into where even though I don't see, I can't see how I'm going to get past this, I don't know how
I'm going to get past it, I trust that I will get past it because it's already been written.
Like, literally just read it to you. We can do all things through him who strengthens us, right?
And our job, our role in that is to basically just take the steps, keep going forward,
just keep going forward and not be afraid to suffer a little bit, to have a little bit of pain
because to get better at anything, to go forward, to level up at whatever saying you want to use,
it always comes with some setbacks and then it comes with a little bit of pain.
That's just how life is, right? It's all in how you respond to the pain, you know? And yeah,
that's what it means. Pretty much, yeah, we all got to go through it and it's best to go through
it with an attitude and say, okay, well, no matter what happens to me, I know I'm going to
get through this. I mean, it'll just change your perspective on a lot of things. And it can also
lead you to really be the change that you want to see because it's easy to expect other people to do
things, but it's hard for you to do it, for you to be the one to start it off. And what I mean by
that is, you know, if you want to see kindness in other people, then be kind, right? You want to see
generosity in other people, then be generous. Like it all starts with us. It starts with movement,
you know, nothing's going to happen if there's no trigger, right? And the trigger is you doing
something. And in regards to Goku, and Goku was always, he's a man of his word. And you can say
that's due to his naivety over the world, because of how he was raised. Because for those who don't
know, Goku was raised on earth by an old man named Gohan. And Gohan lived in like a mountain hut,
like away from civilization. So for the longest time, it was just them two. And, you know, Gohan
taught Goku basically, you know, like how to communicate and speak and things like that. But
Goku set up on his adventure, he was still super young, he had no experience with any other person
outside of Gohan. So a lot of these things he had to learn and, you know, come and be acclimated to
as he was growing up, even to this point. I mean, Goku's like in his 40s now, and he's still,
there's still some things that he's not quick on uptake about. And for better or for worse, that
leaves him, he's just a very, he's a straight shooter. He's very honest. And he's never going
to really deceive you by any means, because he doesn't seem to need to, doesn't see the need to.
And, and that's a quality I wish more of us had, honestly, just being a straight shooter, being
impeccable with our own words and just saying, hey, you know, this, this is what it is like,
whether you like it or not, this is me, this is what, this is what I believe in, this is what I,
I'm going to do, you know, this is what I'm not going to do and just leave it at that. There's
no need to be kind of, you know, just wishy washy and things like that. And I understand that takes
time to get there. Most people don't get there until, you know, they're well into adulthood.
And after they've experienced life and they've, you know, experience what life has to offer and
what it doesn't have to offer, right. They've just lived more, you know, some people who are
my age and younger, we don't really get that right. Or at least we, we think we do, but we really
don't. And it's going to take time. And all that just comes with experience, right? Cause these,
these types of changes, these changes that you want to see, the changes that you want to be,
they all take time, right? It can take a little bit of time. It can take a lot of time, but no
matter what, it's still going to take time to get there. And once we understand that, once we become
okay with it, become okay with the process. And that's why you hear a lot of the motivational
gurus and guys and girls like that say, you know, we've got to fall in love with the process because
also that's going to take up more of your time than getting to the end goal is. So once you get
to the goal, that's it. That's just a brief, a fleeting moment in, in time and in history
where you say, I finally got this goal. Cool. I feel good. I did it. Now what? Right. Whereas
the journey to get there, it's going to take significantly more. It's going to be more than
just a fleeting moment in time. It's actually going to take hours, days, months, years,
however long it's going to take. And during that time, if you, if you hate the process and you're
not, you're not going to do it. You're just not, it's not going to pan out the way that you think
it is because you have to find something that you love within the process in order to get to the
goal. And you know, that's just, that's something I am still learning. It's a fine, fine tune,
my process and whatever it is I'm doing, whether it's this podcast, whether there's something for
work or any other business ventures I'm doing, it's finding something within the process that I,
that I love. I just love to, whether it's something I love to do or to think about or write or just
some aspect of it that I love, because that's what's really going to push me to, to keep going,
to keep going and to keep being the change, you know, and it's all starts back to movement.
You got to move or you want something to happen. You know, another kind of aspect that I think we
all can learn from Goku is, you know, repaying your debts and repaying your debts and being
compassionate to others. Cause Goku doesn't, he doesn't like having to owe people for whatever
the case may be. If someone has saved him once before, he's going to make sure to pay it back,
to pay it forward, honestly, and always, just to always be there for somebody. And then again,
his compassion, it kind of goes back to him being just a straight, the straight shooting fellow that
he is. Goku just loves people. I mean, he really does. He may not understand them all the time,
but he loves them. He loves them to say he loves even former enemies like Piccolo and Vegeta,
and even Yamcha at one point, Goku has grown to love them as they're his friends, right? Some of
the closest friends he's, he's ever had. And even when they were enemies, Goku still chose to spare
them, which, you know, inadvertently made them allies later on down the road. Now he didn't spare
them because he, he thought that, you know, okay, maybe there'll be a good help to us one day. He
just spared them because Goku doesn't like needless bloodshed. Now granted, in the case of Piccolo
and Vegeta, he could have easily justified killing them because they were literally there to kill
everybody, but that's neither here nor there. But you know, Goku's heart is just a pure one. He never
has any mal intentions or anything like that. And he's just, again, what you see is what you get.
That's pretty much it. What you see is what you get. And in today's day and age, that's so rare.
That's so rare to find. It really, really is to really meet somebody and just be that, what you
see is what you get with them. There's no ulterior motive. There's no, you know, underlining scheme
or something like that. And keep in mind, these things don't have to be bad per se. They may have
a different intention, but it's not to harm you or to harm anybody else. They just have a different
goal in mind, right? That's just kind of, you know, that's how like negotiations and things like that
happen on a business front or something, political people are talking, things like that. There's
always something else going on and it's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's not an honest
thing either. And I just think it's just refreshing to be able to have a conversation with somebody
or to even be that person who's just, you know, this is the, I'm not hiding anything, you know,
I'm not holding anything back. I'm not wearing a mask. This is just, this is who I am. This is how
I live my life. If you like it, sweet. If we don't, sweet. Either way, we're good. I'm going to move
on with what I'm doing and you can tag along if you want or not. Like I don't, I don't really care.
We're going to, this is what I'm going to do and this is how I'm going to go do it. And if more
people were like that, oh man, I think we would all get along so much better instead of being as
divided as we can be. And I just think the world would run a little bit smoother. Hey, maybe you
can make your own Z fighter team, right? To have a bunch of people who just, you know, just some die
hearts, right? You know, ride or die is for you and you, for them, everyone who has each other's back
because they know what you're getting out of them and they know what they're getting out of you.
And that breeds a foundation of trust and honestly companionship on a whole different level.
So I encourage you guys to strive to be that person, you know, be the first one, right?
Let's not be followers anymore. Let's be trendsetters, be the first, some of the first
people out there to really show that compassion and to be the change that you want to see, be,
be, you know, the kind, caring and honest and just straightforward, blunt even, maybe the,
maybe just the blunt person that you want to see that you want to be around because
whether people like it or not, even they may be upset and complain about it.
At the end of the day, they're still going to respect it. They're going to respect the honesty
and the, just the care enough for you to just be honest with them straightforward. You know,
if it's going to hurt the feelings or hurt their ego, whatever the case may be, they may be mad
now, but I guarantee you afterwards, they're going to be like, you know what? Thank you. Thank you
for being that type of person who I can rely on no matter what's happening. And in that, honestly,
to get there, that's going to take constant improvement, constant self work on, on, on you.
Because again, all of these things, these, all of this thing, just getting better to being the
type of person that can be relied on, the type of person that you want to see, all of this is a,
is a journey, which is the theme for the Dragon Ball, the Dragon Ball series is, is just a journey.
And that journey takes constant work, constant improvement. And that's where the, again, the
process comes in because life, life is, life is a journey that we're all going through and to get
better, to be better than what we were yesterday. It takes constant improvement. When I say constant,
I mean 24 seven almost like, yeah, okay, maybe not 24 seven, whenever you go to sleep, but every
waking moment is a constant effort, you know, a conscious choice to try to improve in something.
That has to be everything at once, but improve in something. And, you know, part of that is
part of that is combining your natural gifts with some practical knowledge. You know, what is it
that you're good at? What is it that comes naturally to you? And then once you figure that out,
how can you apply it to the real world? How can you, you know, make it, you know, better for people,
you know, outside of yourself? The first figure, maybe figure out how to make it better for you
and how you can use it. And also, okay, how can I expand this now? How can I reach out to more and
more people? How can I make it better? Because, I mean, Goku's was a little unique. His was
different because his natural gift is, you know, fighting, which all the Sans are, but he's
unnaturally good at it for him. And the practical knowledge is really, okay, using his strength to
defend his family and then the world that he lives in and eventually the universe and
all this stuff to do right now. But at the base level of it, his natural gift is he's a
genius when it comes to fighting and coming up with different, you know, strategies and ways to
get stronger and overcome his opponents. And then the practical knowledge is just that, okay,
using that as a force for good and being the quote unquote, like superhero of the verse, right?
Because, you know, they're not really heroes, but you get what I'm saying.
And, and of course, throughout all of this, always work hard, but remember what's truly important,
right? Remember the reasoning, the reason why you're working so hard in the first place.
I mean, I encourage all of you to whatever your goal is, whatever that you're striving for,
is to write down two or three things that, that's going to be your motivation, your,
your push on the days that you don't feel like doing it on the days that you don't feel like
getting up and getting after it, that you can pull out that list and remind yourself, okay,
I'm doing this for my grandma. I'm doing it for my son, my daughter, my husband, my wife,
my dog, even my car. I mean, whatever it is to you, whatever it is that, you know,
gets that fire going for you that if you don't succeed, if you don't succeed in this, that you,
you know, you feel like that you'll let them down, whatever it is that it's going to push you
past yourself, past the, because again, we're our own worst enemies and it's easy for us to
talk ourselves out of something, right? But if we have something on the other,
on the other side of that, something that means more to us than our own satisfaction,
our own being comfortable, then we're more willing to push beyond that limit,
push, push past what, what we think is our limit, what we think is we can't give any more.
And then on the other side of that, it's just a well of, you know, really just, just power,
I was just in, in, in keeping it in tandem with Dragon Ball, right? Because Goku's done this
a couple of times. I think most of the characters have done it at least once or twice in there.
It's case of point with Goku, he's signed as one enemy and the enemy was just beating Goku down.
Like Goku can really do anything with this dude, but the enemy told him that he killed Goku's wife
and child, you know, why he told him this, I don't know, but just, just to make him suffer more.
But in that moment, Goku, again, remembered why he was fighting in the first place while he was
even fighting his adversary. And then the rage that he felt from that pushed him to a new level
that he hadn't tapped into previously. And he was able to fight evenly again. And again,
there's just plenty of different moments like that throughout the entirety of the Dragon Ball
series. And, but it's a, it's a reoccurring thing that, you know, once you remember why you're
doing something, you know, what's truly important to you, what makes the, again, again, what lights
the fire onto you, then that use that as your source, use that as something to push you forward.
And I know for me, a lot of people out there listening, it is, I mean, it is Christ and God
and it's the love that he shared for us and what he, what he sacrificed for us, you know, he sent
his only son to die for all of us, even when we don't deserve it. Right. So just keeping that in
the back of my mind is like, okay, I've been called to reach out to as many people as, as I possibly
can. Right. For a long time, I didn't know what that meant. Still kind of don't know what that means.
I'm just trying to figure it out, right. Seeing what works and what sticks and if something doesn't,
okay, what can I take from it? And then go on to the next venture and see, and just really pushing
myself to get outside of my comfort zone of being a natural introvert, you know, not really want to
deal with people and not really wanting to communicate with people, but remembering what's
important is that no matter how I feel, someone, there's someone out there who feels worse than me,
there's someone out there who, who is just in a worse off spot than I am, who needs to hear my voice
and the message that I'm sharing. And that might, that might help them get, just get through the day,
you know, we never know. And that's the same for all of us. If we're too afraid to put ourselves
out there, then, then we're too afraid to change. We're too afraid to be a change. And again,
just be the change that you want to see. At the end of the day, just be the change that you want to
see. If you want the world to be a better place, then start by being a better person,
a little bit at a time, you know, day by day, breath by breath, it's not going to happen overnight.
And it may not take as long as you think it will, but then at the end of the day,
it's going to be worth it. It's going to be worth it. So again, just want to thank you guys for
tuning into today's episode. I pray that you got what you needed out of it and that you learn
something new about yourself and find out what it is that motivates you, what's going to get you
pumped into the reach to the next level. Feel free to subscribe to the podcast and leave a review.
I would love reading you guys' comments and it honestly does help me improve each and every
episode. And again, always remember, you are the main character of your story and that story doesn't
end until he says so. All right, be blessed.