The Benefits of Having a Villain

During the 1960s, comic book heroes Batman and Robin made their debut on national television. 

Every Tuesday and Wednesday night on ABC, the Caped Crusader and his youthful ward Boy Wonder fought crime in fictional Gotham City. America was introduced to Commissioner Gordon, Chief O’Hara, Aunt Harriet and Alfred the Butler. 

Viewers were taken behind the scenes into the Batcave, where Batman had all kinds of fancy tools. These items, such as the Bat Computer, Bat Map and the Batman search engine, provided instant information. And while they appeared ridiculous during the 60s, they’ve since become part of our everyday life. 

Batman had Google 40 years before us in his high-tech secret cave, which was off-limits to most everyone except Alfred. All of the technology helped the Dynamic Duo catch bad guys, and every week, another seemed to emerge.  

The moment Batman and Robin’s feet hit the bottom of their Bat Pole, they were determined to erase the villains in their city. 

When our feet hit the ground each morning, like Batman and Robin, we have villains we must defeat each day, just without costumes. 

Our villains come in many shapes in sizes. They can come from our alarm clock, the cold floor in the bathroom, the nightmare commute, the month-to-month paycheck that doesn’t stretch as far as we want, the boring work, our expectations, our dreams, fears and obstacles we face. 

Our villains sometimes hide under a layer of resistance or a belief now is not the right time. The challenging part is our villains don’t appear only on Tuesday and Wednesday night. They are consistent, and the moment we defeat one, the next arrives. 

With every victory over our daily villain, we learn they help us shape our life story.

Steven Pressfield, the wonderful writer of “The Legend of Bagger Vance,” “The War of Art” and many other great books, in his Wednesday Writing on his website believes that without a villain, there would be no story. 

To sell stories, to impact the reader, there needs to be a villain the audience wants the hero to defeat. Villains connect the reader to the story, and villains connect us to self-achievement.

When we categorize something as a villain, our focus shifts, we become more competitive, our resolve becomes stronger our determination rises. 

Our internal instincts for survival take over and we find strength we never thought we possessed. We no longer look at our watches or believe this isn’t the right time. We instead go headfirst with intent to win the battle against the villain.

Our attitude becomes we must win, we need to win, we won’t stop until we win. Like Batman, there might be days when the villain looks to have the upper hand, placing us in an untenable situation. But like Batman, somehow, someway, we escape and eventually win. 

If we are being honest, having villains help us. We need them. When we don’t have an opponent, we don’t reach our true potential. We don’t have to be mean-spirited about the opponent. We just need to recognize having a villain forces us to not cut corners or slack off. 

Villains helps us. 

So slide down the pole each morning — and go and attack you’re villain. 

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