I am a huge fan of science fiction movies and the recent Scifi movies like Gravity, Interstellar and the latest “The Martian“ have been nothing short of a candy treat for me. Gravity was visually stunning but I thought the theme went very dark at times while Interstellar was breathtaking in special effects, sound track and story, its plot was riddled with too many holes. The Martian (I have watched it twice now) is not dark, quite entertaining, has a nice story line with less plot holes. Matt Damon has done a fantastic job at holding our attention as a stranded earthling on Mars who eventually colonizes the planet! (watch the movie to know what this means). Ridley Scott has redeemed himself after the Prometheus fiasco and maybe he also received good funding to create a movie that urges people to support spending billions on space exploration while US is languishing in unemployment, poverty, economic challenges at home and international troubles. Read more about why US is cutting NASA budget here. India has accomplished sending a mission to mars at 1/10th the cost of what NASA spent on similar missions so I do think the budget cuts are justified to force NASA to think about innovative ways to reduce cost. So I am not in support of sending more people to Mars while we are screwing up planet earth, but this being an movie post, I do like the movie theme very much for its entertainment quotient and uplifting messages.
The movie has many uplifting moments and is a treasure trove of inspirational anecdotes. Here are my top 5 lessons from the movie. (Spoiler alert – don’t read this article as it has plot details and if you don’t want to ruin the surprises in the movie)
- The main character (Mark) is left behind on Mars due to an accident but he does not blame the team for what happened to him. He instantly rationalizes their actions and decides that he might have done the same thing under the circumstances. He saves himself a huge heartache and grief by forgiving them for what they did. This not only cleared his head but it also helped him focus on what to do next to save his life. We are all so stuck in our past for what many people did to us and we waste tremendous amount of creative force, time and energy in ruminating about what happened to us. Thus we lose golden opportunities to plan for future and create a better place for ourselves. Lesson 1# Forgive and forget the past/people and move on. Brighter future awaits your creative force.
- Mark, while addressing young astronauts describes his experience thus “At some point everything is going to go south on you and you will say – this is it, I am going to die now! You can either accept that or you can get to work. Solve one problem at a time and if you solve enough problems you get to go home.” Problems in our lives never come one at a time and they stay with us until we figure out how to solve them. We cannot control why they come, how they come, when they come, but they always look daunting, stressful and life destroying. We have the choice of wallowing in pity and dying or we can take one step at a time and resolve whatever we can. Lesson #2 Don’t let troubles scare you into a corner. Fight back with one solution at a time.
- Mark is the only man left on Mars and he is alone and anything that can be remotely called home is away by at least 1 year of space journey. For some this can be a very scary part – “being alone“. Much of our time is spent on social interactions so that we don’t ever feel alone. We are scared to death being alone because we feel lonely inside. There is a big difference being lonely and being alone! Mark brings this differentiation out very well in the way he conducts himself on Mars. He has many dark moments like: when there is a severe storm outside that nearly tears the base camp apart, or when he blows himself up while trying to create water, or when an accident destroys all his food, or when he realizes he is just a few metres short of being rescued in space. But his dark moments are always replaced by his cheerfulness and his focus on the goal to get back to earth. He also immensely enjoys being alone on Mars. Some of his own words are “Every where I go, I am the first! Every hill I climb, every turn I take, I am the first!”, “I glance everyday at the vast landscape and watch the horizon just because I can”. He also doesn’t have to deal with other people while solving problems which could have actually been a boon in disguise because he only had to deal with his own judgements and not others opinions. Lesson #3 Don’t be afraid of being alone on your path. Sometimes that is exactly what you need to get your head clear!
- Innovation is the name of the game. For every challenge thrown at him, Mark is always finding new solutions to overcome it. Whether it is creating manure from human waste and growing potatoes as food, creating water from Hydrogen combustion, communicating in hexadecimal code using an old Pathfinder, using suit pressure to fly like iron man, rationing his food to last almost 500 SOL days on Mars, using a decaying nuclear fuel to keep himself warm during a long drive (and saving on battery power), Mark just moves like a genius solving every problem. In most companies, resources are hard to come by and we are constantly fighting with each other for every bit that we can get. We make many enemies in the process and forget being innovative about solving the challenges we are facing. Easiest solutions are to layoff employees, cut down factories/stores/shops/departments, reduce spending on new products & solutions, not use all the resources to their full capacity (human or otherwise) and blame the market, economy, fate, war, leaders, teams etc for everything that is wrong. All that we need is a little bit of innovative thinking to figure out what else can we do with what we have. There will never be a perfect situation where you will have everything that you need. A great example is the Indian Mars mission, Mangalyan which costed only 1/10th of NASA mission or equivalent cost for making a Martian movie! Why India’s Mars mission is cheaper than NASA #Lesson 4 Doing more with less is the key to survive in your job & life.
- Mark is supported by an amazing team (both on earth and in space) in many of his challenges. When they have to make a choice to go another 1.5 years in space to rescue him they decide “YES” in a heart beat. His team takes as much risk as he does in rescuing him. They blow up the last compartment to slow the ship down, jump into space to pull him out his capsule, disobey directive from NASA management by leaking information about a possible rescue mission, fight for resources to bring him back, manage media relations, get support from Chinese mission for another launch, figure out a way to use a Sling shot approach to reach Mars faster, design a lighter capsule, and so on. Nothing beats the energy, joy, feeling of fulfillment than working together as a team. They do have their moments of disagreements and vehement debates but they all know that the end goal is the rescue of fellow astronaut. While being alone at time is good for health, working in a team is also tremendously beneficial. Lesson #5 Be a good team player and find ways to help each other. That is the best way to get things done.
In retrospect, I knew this was a movie and that in Hollywood most movies end with the good guys winning but for some reason this movie lifted my energy levels and made me feel happy about facing the challenges in my life. So for giving me that good feeling I do recommend that you watch the movie while it is still in theaters. Visual effects are more fun on larger screen than on TV screen and hopefully you will like the movie & remember some of its lessons.
#lifelessons #strategy