What I learned from Disney’s “Encanto”

..and yes, of course I cried :D

I am late to join the Disney’s Encanto fan club. It’s only after I got covid, and then I had to isolate that I found the chance to download the streamline service and watched it. Please forgive me.

For those who haven’t watched it, it’s about a girl named Mirabel, whose entire family were blessed by finding their gifts (physical strength, ability to talk to animals, growing flowers, controlling weather, etc.) except for her.

So, forgive me for the late praises, but… that was such a beautiful story. I mean, how many times do we feel like we’re not living to our most potentials? Like we’re probably wasting our time, our talents, our energy. Like there’s probably a world out there where we can achieve so much more and do so much better? Or the way the movie captured it “finding the gift” — and to make things worse, everybody else seems to have it (the gift)! So we’re surely behind.

Growing up in a competitive environment, surrounded by a lot of successful individuals, even those way younger than me — surely I have this feeling every now and then, especially in the beginning of my career, which my husband liked to call “a school zone”. He referred to school zone because we’re raised to compete against our friends to get the best recognition, trophies, etc.

Fortunately,
(1) I have a bigger critic inside of me, that pushed me to focus on raising my standard quality,
(2) I have a husband that reminds me that it’s a marathon, not a sprint — so instead of focusing in few years, we need to focus on a long term
(3) I realized from reading books and watching Encanto, that…. you are enough.

The world is designed to make you envy, to make you want more, be more, consume more. But the truth is, you are enough. And comparing yourself to others, they never help.

Some found their gift early, some later in life, or maybe never found it. And the most important thing is that we are not fixated in finding it, but giving the best in what we can do today. Focus on the present, remember?

I guess I’ve made my point, and hope you can take something out of it.

Lastly, I just want to say, if you want to do something, and you have this fear inside of you that’s stopping you from achieving that: dwell on it. You can always choose to let your fear stop you, or let your motivation drives you. Your pick!