Four Lessons I Learned from The 100

About three weeks ago, a friend of mine told me that there was a show I should start watching. Before I keep going, you should know that I am a FEIGNNNNNN for all things film and television. However, technically now it is all things film and streaming services because I never watch anything on cable anymore. Anyway, the show that the friend mentioned to me was The 100. This was one of the shows that I would always scroll past but I would never actually click on. For some reason, it just could not catch my eye. I even turned it on and let it play for five minutes before cutting it off. Something this time told me to turn it on and actually pay attention. My friend was raving on and on about the show so I thought... hey why not.

After binging all seven seasons in two weeks, I felt extremely attatched to both the show itself and all of the cast in it. Every single episode was full of chaos, lessons and love. There were even moments where I would have to turn it off from being overwhelmed but by the end of the night, I would be back in my bed watching it again. If you have not seen it yet, I promise you it is a GREAT watch!! GO WATCH!! You can find it on Netflix or on soap2day.to which is a website that you can either watch on your phone or watch on your tv if it is a smart tv.

As a little momento to tribute to my favorite show of all time, here are five lessons that I learned while watching the 100.

1. There is a thin line between surviving and living. The line is VERY thin but it is there.

This is a lesson that I learned from every single main character but mainly from Clark and her "daughter" Maddy. After being left behind by her friends whenever Earth was once again being taken over my radiation, Clark met Maddy in the only village that the radiation didn't touch. Maddy was a nightblood so unlike all of the other humans left behind, Maddy was not at all affected by the radiation. She had been living in the village by herself and only seemed to be 8-10 years old max. The two of them became close being the only two people left on Earth, as far as they knew. Over time (about 5 years or something) Clark begin calling Maddy her daughter and truly treated her that way by teaching her everything that she knows about how to survive.

Once they found out that other people were indeed still alive and ended up on another planet where there were even more people, including those the age of Maddy, Maddy started wanting to do the same things that other kids were doing. However, Clark was reluctant and always trying to tell Maddy about how she isnt like all of the other kids and she can't just do "kid things". There were moments in some of the episodes where Maddy would rebel and say that she just wants to have fun and be with her friends and so on and so on.

At first, I thought that Maddy was being ungrateful and shamelessly risky but then I realized... they had been practicing survival tactics all day and night for years. Maddy just wanted to be a kid... and Clark should have just wanted to be human for once. They had always been so zoned into surviving that they had let years pass by without even spending one of those moments just living. All of their time was spent worrying about whats next and how to get through whatever it is. So now that they were in a new place with new people and a school and a playground and a castle and just more oppurtunities and things to do, Clark had no idea hwo to function in it. She had no idea how to just be.

So after thinking about all of that for a while, I told myself to never get so caught up in surviving that I forget to just live. We all do it sometimes by getting caught up in bills, work and complicated relationships. Alot of times it can feel like it is just one thing after the next. Do not let all fo that chaos stop you from pausing and looking around at the life you have and actually enjoying it for a second.

2. Sacrifices are a part of life. It doesn't have to be fair.

Whenever they were still in space on the ark, they had the issue of having too many people aboard and not enough oxygen to sustain all of them. After diliberation, those in charge decided that the only answer was to rid of some of the people. Whenever this happened, a lot of people were upset. I was even upset. I kept asking myself how can you just kill that many people. How do you decide who is important enough to live?

Then, once they got inside of the bunker, only 100 of their people were allowed to stay there to avoid death my radiation. Once again they were going to have to get rid of people but this was a couple of seasons in whenever this time inside of the bunker happened. I did not have the same confused feelings. After only one season of this show, you come to the realization that not only in The 100, but in real life... 40% of it, is about sacrifice. People so often say, "oh this isn't fair" or "why me?". that you are going to be faced with many moments in your life were sacrifice or pain is necessary. It will more than likely not be fair. That is just something that you have to accept.

This lesson brings me to the next one.

3. Sometimes there isn't a right choice; just two choices to choose from.

One of the toughest parts of life is whenever you are faced with a problem that has no good solutions. This goes hand and hand with realizing that a lot of making it through life is all about sacrifice; but deeper than that, you have to be mentally and emotionally equipped to make the hard choices. Sacrifice is 10x more difficult whenever you are sacrificing something or someone of great value to you. Whenever you are faced with this issue, you have to remove yourself from the problem emotionally. You have to be smart and strong enough to pick the better option regardless of who it hurts.

Raven showed me this by staying behind on the prisoner transport ark to make sure that she could watch over the control system. Whenever Bellamy and the rest went back down to Earth, Raven told them she would stay behind and come down later in the emergency ship. Right after they leave, the show reveals that there is no emergency ship. Raven only told them that because she knew if she didn't they wouldn't leave her behind. She knew that she had to stay behind to watch over the control board and cryo frozen prisoners. She put herself in a position that she could have possibly died in just to make sure that the prisoners would not get down to the planet and cause chaos.

5. Give people a chance.

The most important lesson for me while watching The 100 was to let people in. Whenever I first started watching there were so many characters that I hated. By the third season, I loved them all and watched the characters grow and start to love eachother. It reminded me to let my gaurd down and allow relationships/friendships to grow wherever they do. I watched all of the characters, especially Bellemay and Clark learn to trust, appreciate and help eachother grow.

People often have this idea of what "their people"/their friends or lovers will be like but the truth is one day, you just come across someone and a bond starts to form. My guard is often so high that bonds do not have the oppurtunity to form. I didn't even realize it until I realized how unattached from forming those new relationships all of the characters were. They reminded me so much of myself. You block your blessings by doing that. You miss out on good people and good moments but trying to be so independent or one man army rules the world.

No, you will not click with everyone that you meet but what if you could click with 90% of them? Leaning into forming friendships and allowing bonds to build is deeper than having a good person to hang out with. The people in your life can be of great value to you, as you also can be to them. While watching the 100 I realized how these 100 people had formed and created a sort of… village. Everyone has a purpose, something to do, a way to add value. “Your people”, those people in your life who you meet and grow close to are your village. It is okay to let more people into it. I’m not saying to trust everyone you meet and let them live with you lmfao. I am just saying to give people a chance… don’t judge… allow people to show you who they are… friendships can form in the weirdest of weird places. Allow them to.