This article highlights the importance of believing in yourself through the story of Po, the main character in the movie Kung Fu Panda, as he gains confidence and grows into a dragon warrior. Through the faith of those around him and his own beliefs, Po grows both internally and externally, reminding us of the need to live a confident and challenging life.
In the beginning, when the world was created, everything was immersed in chaos and darkness. Over time, light and darkness, heaven and earth were divided, and the sea and land appeared on top of them. Just as the world gradually took shape, so too does our life gradually take shape. The process of putting the pieces of our lives together is sometimes chaotic and sometimes serene.
At one point or another, we all find our own path. Like exploring a forest without a path, we must find our way through the myriad of options before us. Along the way, we experience many trials and failures. But these failures don’t just mean that we chose the wrong path; they give us the opportunity to make better choices. Our life is like a movie, sometimes dramatic and sometimes comical. And we are the main characters in this movie, writing our own story.
If you listen to the stories of successful people, they have all been unafraid of failure and constantly challenged themselves. Failure is a stepping stone to success, and it allows us to grow. And the most important thing in this process is to believe in yourself. Believing in your abilities, believing in the path you want to take, leads to self-confidence, and self-confidence makes our lives richer.
When asked if they feel confident in their lives, how many people can say yes without hesitation? Worries are always on their tails: entrance exams in middle and high school, finding a job in college, marriage and retirement after college, etc. For many people, these worries lead to low self-confidence, so they give up on challenges and go with the flow.
Po, the protagonist of Kung Fu Panda, is similar to many of us who lack confidence at first. Po loves kung fu, but he is unable to challenge himself and cannot go against his father’s wishes, so he lives with his father as a noodle vendor. One day, while watching a contest to find a dragon warrior, he is chosen by his grandfather, Wu Wei, to be the Dragon Warrior. Po’s lack of self-confidence and the distrust of those around him led him to run away, but the faith placed in him by Grandmaster Ugwei and Master Shifu helped him train and grow. With the help of Master Shifu and his father, Po grows both externally and internally to become a real dragon warrior.
The first time I saw Kung Fu Panda was as a freshman in college. I had just started watching movies in my free time as a college student, and I preferred movies with happy endings, so a friend recommended it to me. I found Po to be a very appealing character, with a chubby body and a bulging belly, but with a pure passion for kung fu and growing confidence. After watching the movie, I felt satisfied with the happy ending, proud of Po’s growth, and inspired to think that I could do the same, which made me feel happy for a while.
Recently, after watching Kung Fu Panda for the second time, I kept thinking about the two most memorable scenes in the movie. First up is the first scene.
Master Shifu tests Po to see if he’s worthy of becoming a dragon warrior, and is greatly disappointed by his poor kung fu skills. When he tells his grandfather, Wu Wei, that he has no chance, Wu Wei tells Master Shifu: “You just need to believe. “He just needs you to believe in him, promise me. Promise to believe in him.” Deciding to take Ugwei’s word for it, Master Shifu begins to believe in Po and sees possibilities in Po’s superhuman strength when it comes to food.
It was this belief in Wu Wei and Master Shifu that inspired Po to start training, even though he had no confidence and wanted to run away. Po, who was just a fan of kung fu, suddenly had to accept the heavy responsibility of being a Dragon Warrior, and he didn’t believe in himself. But when Wu Wei believed in him, Po stopped running away and started practicing, and when Master Shifu believed in him, recognized his talent, and began the grueling training, Po didn’t give up and improved rapidly. It was clear that it was the belief of his masters that helped Po become a Dragon Warrior.
Just as Master Shifu’s unquestioning faith in Po helped him grow, so did the faith of the people around him. Recently, one of the things I’ve been thinking about the most after I decided to get a job after graduation is whether or not I’ll be able to handle social life. I’m the type of person who gets stressed out about things changing, and since I’m about to make one of the biggest changes of my life, I’ve been having insomnia due to constant worry. I admired my parents and wondered how they were able to overcome all the difficult things they went through and live well until this point, but I also wondered if I would be able to survive it. I told my parents and close friends that I was having a lot of trouble sleeping and worrying about these thoughts lately. The response I got was a blind faith in you, “You’ve made it this far, you can do it.” It was predictable comfort. It was predictable and comforting. But when I didn’t believe in myself, it was very warming to be told that I could do it, not for any reason, but just because you can. Although my anxiety didn’t disappear completely, I was able to feel the expectations that were buried in my anxiety and the confidence that was trapped in my worries again thanks to the comfort of my parents and friends.
This brings me to the second most memorable scene. Po, who has grown through his kung fu training, finally becomes a dragon warrior and obtains the dragon document to defeat Tai Lung. Excited by the prospect of becoming a dragon warrior, Po opens the document and is quickly disappointed to find that it says nothing. As Po runs away, he meets his father, who tells him that his father is a noodle maker. “There’s no such thing as a secret noodle recipe, you just have to think of it as special to make it special.” Realizing something, Po opens the dragon’s document again and sees his face reflected in it, and goes back to defeat Tai Lung.
Po realizes that perhaps the way to become a dragon warrior is not to have a special secret, but to believe that you are special and have the confidence to do it. When Tai Lung comes to take the dragon’s document and is surprised to find it empty, Po tells him, “There is no secret ingredient, it’s you.” Po has taught Tai Lung the importance of believing himself to be special, but Tai Lung doesn’t realize it and ultimately loses to Po.
What exactly does it mean to think of yourself as special, and here it seems that it’s not about being better than others by some standard, but having the confidence that comes from believing in yourself. As mentioned earlier, modern people are living a life of worry, and the cause of this worry is anxiety about the future and a lack of confidence that they can handle the upcoming dangers. However, the special person in this movie is the one who overcomes anxiety and worry with confidence and progresses.
I thought to myself, have I ever thought of myself as special? As an only child who was always loved by my parents, I used to think I was very special. I truly believed that because my parents praised me for being good at whatever I did and always encouraged me to be great. But after high school and college, that didn’t happen. I kept comparing myself to others and measuring myself against their standards. What I got out of the comparison was short-term pride as a frog in a well, and inferiority after I realized it. I wondered if my childhood self, who thought he was more special than my current self, who lives with pride and inferiority complexes all the time, was really special.
In Kung Fu Panda, there are two kinds of beliefs. There are two kinds of beliefs in Kung Fu Panda: belief in others and belief in oneself. In fact, as I mentioned earlier, I had little faith in myself up until this point, and I think I had been relying on the faith of others. However, after watching Kung Fu Panda, I thought a lot about it and realized that I wanted to believe in myself. I should remember those moments that were special because I believed that I was special, and I should believe in myself and live a special life.
