Yes Virginia, the Force is Wide Awake!!!

Well, the long wait is finally over.

What is arguably the most anticipated movie of all time is in the wild.  Record breaking opening weekend figures are not even a question, Jurassic World is definitely going down.  But if you haven't been fortunate enough to secure opening weekend tickets, the real question is...
Is it worth the hype??

Spoil it, I will not.

Some early reviews have declared that The Force Awakens is the "best Star Wars film since 1983!", and the "best Star Wars film in thirty years!"
Well, as Han Solo put it...

Yes, this IS the best Star Wars since 1983...yet it must be said, that bar isn't all that high.  

Of the four Star Wars movies since 1983's The Empire Strikes Back, the only one of note has been The Return of the Jedi.  The three prequels were incredibly disappointing, and i'd bet that a large part of your concern maybe that if this movie was as bad as the last trilogy, it could potentially sour your entire Christmas.

Fear not, true believers.  The magic is back!

If J.J. Abrams main job was to steady the ship of this franchise, and point it in the right direction, he has done so, spectacularly.  This feels like a Star Wars movie, from the opening crawl to the closing credits, it feels like a reunion with your childhood friends.  

The new characters introduced (Finn, Rey, Poe Dameron & Kylo Ren) are entertaining additions to the mythology, but Han Solo owns this movie.  If you thought that Harrison Ford had lost it, or that he just seemed to be cashing a check in Indy 4, he is full on brilliant as Han Solo here. This is no glorified cameo, Han Solo's role is pivotal to the story.

The Force Awakens is fast-moving, full of the swashbuckling action, humor and adventure you remember, most of the old gang is back, there are lots of callbacks to Episodes IV-VI, Abrams resists the temptation to CGI the shit out of everything, John Williams fantastic score maintains the feeling of tension, thrills and excitement throughout, and the movie definitely does not suck.  

I left the Cinema feeling giddy, euphoric.  Hell, I felt like doing the Morris Day dance!!  

Managing Your Expectations

Is TFA groundbreaking?  Nope.

Is a large portion of the plot arguably re-treading fertile ground from the original films?  Maybe.

Are there plot points that make much less sense the more you think about them? Of course.  Yet, while watching the film, I never had a "What shite is this?" moment. (Remember that Phantom Menace midi-chlorians stuff?  None of that crap here.)

This is not the "Best Film of the Franchise", but frankly, it doesn't need to be.  It's a good enough Star Wars movie, that leaves you anxious to see how these characters will develop and questions will be answered in Episodes VIII & IX.  

The Force Awakens is a welcome, and greatly appreciated return to form.  Pleasing the fans, giving them (new) hope and simultaneously exorcising the memory of the prequels may be Abrams' best Christmas gift.  

With strong word of mouth expected, Avatar and Titanic better buckle up, because Star Wars is coming!  Their ally is the Force.

And a very powerful ally it is. 

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What To Do When Life Serves You a Kobayashi Maru? (II)

So what did Dave do next?

If you're confused, read part 1 of this post here.  Go on, we'll wait for you. 

All up to speed now? Great!

So we saw that Dave suddenly found out that:
his MBA assignments had doubled;
his time was cut in half;
not finishing = extra money he couldn't afford;
and he regularly works 10-12 hours a day, which is basically all the time we really have.

And the choices provided by his College were:
1) Apply for a 5 day extension, and the reasons that would be accepted were: A sudden illness of Dave/someone he had to care for; or a short notice project at work.  
Or
2) Dave could just try to finish which assignments he could, and accept failure for the others.

There were no good options.  It was a no-win scenario, a "Kobay Maru".

In Star Trek mythology, Captain James T. Kirk was the only cadet in Starfleet history to beat the dreaded Kobayashi Maru scenario. 

The original no-win scenario was a training simulation in which cadets encounter a civilian ship in distress. The cadet is presented with two choices: enter the Neutral Zone to save the civilians, thereby violating treaty and potentially provoking war with the Klingons; or avoid war by abandoning the Kobayashi Maru, thus condemning the civilians to death. 

In the simulation, choosing to enter the Neutral Zone results in the Klingons attacking and destroying the ship which the cadet is commanding. The Kobayashi Maru was constructed as a no-win scenario. How did Kirk beat it?

Kirk reprogrammed the simulation, so that it was possible to save the civilians and avoid war with the Klingons.

Some consider that cheating, and it is arguable that Kirk didn't get the true point of the simulation.  

We prefer to think that young cadet Kirk recognised that he was playing a rigged game, and decided to change the rules of engagement.  And that's exactly what Dave did.

His reading of the college regulations showed a common premise behind all the "acceptable" extension reasons that were presented to him: circumstances beyond a student's control that would negatively affect their preparation of their assignments.

He asked himself, "How is my loss of thirty days prep time, due to an administrative decision to suddenly change their published dates, any different?" He thought, why should he beg for five days, from the same body that took his thirty days?
As a full-time professional, wasn't his time just as important?

The options Dave got from the student liaison ignored these issues, and five days really couldn't do much to help him.  He didn't see any profit in going to war with the college, but he needed to talk to someone at a higher level, who had the power to make a difference.

Dave presented his case to the College President. 
He took a leap of faith.  Faith that any reasonable person would understand the injustice of the situation.  Faith that God would influence those in authority to do the right thing.

Faced with a no-win scenario, and only two bad options, sometimes we need to challenge those options that we take for granted.

Sometimes, we need to find that third option we hadn't considered before.  Sometimes, we need to try to change the rules of the rigged game.

And sometimes...we may just succeed.

How have you dealt with your "no-win" scenarios?
Let us know in the comments section!

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What do you do, when life serves you a Kobayashi Maru?

Fans of Star Trek would instantly recognize what the term "Kobayashi Maru" refers to.

For those non-fans, (shame on you) you more than likely may have encountered one at some point in your life. It's basically a "no-win" scenario, one of those situations where everything seems to be against you & obstacles seem to block all your paths.

Some liken it to being between a "rock and a hard place", sometimes in a situation where you're trying to make a positive change in your life. It can also feel personalized, as if some negative forces are trying to keep you down. 

You've already faced a Kobay Maru of your own, or you soon will.  The question is, how do you handle it?
Let's look at this real-life scenario.

One morning, my pal Dave and I were talking on the phone, when I noticed his patented long, silent pause...this is my cue that Dave has stopped listening to me, and is reading an email he just received. When this pause was interrupted by a "What the f#&k??", I knew that this was a BIG one.

Atypically, this email wasn't work-related, it was from Dave's College.  The thing is, that after fifteen years of extended workdays & weekends, Dave had finally decided to do something different, to benefit both himself and his family.  He went back to school to complete his MBA.  

It was really rough with his work schedule, but now he was in the final stretch. Three assignments to complete by December, three more for January, a final yr project in 2016, and he was done.  He could see that proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. 

Then he got this email telling him that those January assignments, were really due by December.  It meant that Dave suddenly had half the time, to complete twice the number of assignments.  He only had twenty days left.

Man, Dave was a mess. He was simultaneously confused, worried and pissed off. 

With his job, he didn't see any way he could finish all six assignments in twenty days, and the financial implications of failure were not a burden he needed right before Christmas.  The January date was published a month and a half before, and Dave had planned his entire work and vacation schedule around it. There had to be some mistake, so he contacted the College.  The student liaison, however, did not have good news.

This wasn't a mistake, and while she was very understanding about the pickle Dave was put in, that's just what the situation was.  He could apply for a extension, though.
  

The short term extension would give Dave five extra days, but he would have to provide evidence that he was ill, or either his wife or children were hit with a short term illness, or some new project got dumped on him at work without any notice.

He could also try for a long term extension, if he could show that some circumstances beyond his control had prevented him from finishing on time. And that extension, apparently had to be approved by God himself.

Dave had lost a full month, five days really wasn't going to help him much, even if he could manufacture evidence to get it approved. Long term was a long-shot. The only other choice he could see was sacrificing one or two of the assignments outright, and toiling night and day to try to at least finish the other four. The financial hit would be less that way.

Dave just had no good options available to him.
There seemed to be no way to succeed. He was faced with a "Kobayashi Maru".

In our next post, we'll look at what Dave did next.

P.S: For those who haven't seen The Lord of the Rings, (you poor souls) and didn't get the picture reference above, this clip is for you. :)

How would you tackle Dave's Koby Maru? Leave us your comments below!

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Still Thinking That Wealth is in How Much You Make? Think Again.

Many people still think that more money is the solution.  

A solution for finding their happiness, (who convinced them that it was lost?) or for ending their financial challenges.

Sadly, as many lotto winners can attest, money is not a cure for all that ails you.

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