My subscribers may not believe this, but I’m someone who gets frustrated more often
than you may think. Oftentimes I find myself complaining about my living space, my finances,
or my love life, and something that helps me tone down my frustration is remembering the fact
that right now, I’m living someone’s dream life. There are literally millions of people that wish
they had what I had. There are literally millions of people going through hell right now. When you
watch those commercials about kids starving in Africa, you feel not only for them, but
for their family. Nobody deserves to go through that. I’ve discovered a Simpsons episode that
explores this topic of what it’s like to deal with a tragic situation, and I want to talk about it.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is The tragic tale of Ned Flanders…. AKA “The happiest
man in Springfield.” At the beginning of this story, a massive hurricane hits Springfield.
By the looks of it, this is one deadly hurricane. Moments pass, and The Simpsons family survive the
storm perfectly fine, however their neighbor Ned, isn’t so lucky. The good news? His family
survives with minimal injury. The bad news? His entire house, and all that was inside
is destroyed. Marge says in this episode, “it just goes to show you that everything will work out if
you have faith.” True, but Ned is literally the most faithful character in Springfield.
He’s always nice to people, he doesn’t curse, and he’s a proud follower of his religion.
From his perspective, he’s done no wrong. So all he is left with is confusion.
You hear stories like this all the time on the news. Whether it’s a tragic celebrity death,
or some other controversial issue. Sometimes bad things happen to those who don’t deserve
it. As shown in this story, it can even happen to the kindest of people. On the upside, it reminds
me to appreciate every day that I’m alive. They really could have based this entire episode around
this message, but halfway through the story takes a different approach, and it’s quite interesting.
Just when Ned loses all hope, a miracle happens. Everyone in Springfield combines their efforts
to rebuild his house from the ground up. However, they don’t do a very good job.
Putting a toilet next to a refrigerator may be convenient,
but perhaps isn’t the best design choice. And last time I checked, Stuart Little isn’t
a Simpsons character so this hallway is pretty much useless. As if it wasn’t obvious enough,
none of these people are construction workers, but it's the thought that counts… right? Well,
according to Ned, it's the most insulting thing they could have done.
You see, Ned isn’t as happy-go-lucky as he seems. His personality is interesting to say the least.
Deep down he’s hiding some emotions, his true feelings about certain individuals,
and they’re not very kind. No matter how nice someone is,
if you push their buttons hard enough, eventually they’re bound to explode. For Ned,
his house collapsing for the second time is the straw that broke the camel’s back.
So he has a mental breakdown, explodes with anger, and it shocks everyone because obviously
they were just trying to help him. He then starts insulting everyone he runs into,
calling them ugly, jerks, and bad people, then drives off to turn himself in a mental
hospital. The doctor tells him the reason for his suppresses his anger
has to do with the fact that he was put through an anger management treatment as a child.
Ned became unable to express any rage whatsoever.
Throughout his life, he’s carried this image as this enlightened, nice guy. People only see him as this “perfect, goody two-shoes” who never gets
mad. So when they see him explode after his house collapsed for a second time, they’re all shocked,
because they’ve never seen him like that. So in a twisted sort of way, his house getting
blown down led to him discovering something about himself that he never noticed before.
People are doing this all the time in real life. For instance: When you watch one of your favorite
celebrities on TV, or social media most of the time you’re only seeing their good side…
and this channel is no exception. You see the passion, creativity, and positive energy and
judge the video based on that, but what you don’t see are the emotions behind the scenes.
You don’t see the frustration, the tears, my lowest moments throughout the years, you just
see the final product. This is because I deeply value quality, professionalism, and uploading an
entertaining product before anything else. Now, I’m not implying that I, and every other content
creator who has ever lived is fake. I guess you could see it that way, but the way I see it,
there are legitimate reasons as to why people design their art the way they do. Whether it’s
to stand out from the competition, or for monetary purposes. People try to be as pure as they can be,
but sometimes you "gotta do what you gotta do," if you catch my drift. At the end of
the day we’re all human, and whether we want to admit it or not we deeply value survival,
and when we don’t get that it drives us insane. In Ned’s case, he just doesn’t want to admit it.
Part of what it means to be human is to give all your emotions an opportunity to express
themselves. Anger, sadness, happiness, frustration, confusion, we all have these
emotions, but sometimes we are afraid to give them time to shine. Have you ever seen someone who is
always grumpy, smile? Have you ever seen someone who is always happy, cry? It changes your beliefs,
and opinions about that person, doesn’t it?
And hey, not everyone’s going to like it, yeah, but you may be surprised with how many people respect your honesty, and you’ll feel free.