These GUYS are hard to define.

Their complexity as characters is what makes them compelling as they navigate their way through their respective series. Whether they be conflicted, tortured, broken,  or just insecure it’s that turbulent nature that makes everything they do as interesting as it is consequential.

Things happen because of them and then unfold through them.

It’s a draining endeavor when you develop a vested interest in a fictional character who seems to be hell bent on frustrating you. They may be fictional but the lessons I learned through watching their story unfold are packed with truth.

Donald Draper – Mad Men

Lesson: If you can’t learn from your past, the future will be no better

Donald Draper lives his life through an expertly crafted network of lies designed to enable him and protect him from the consequences of his behavior. He is successful, handsome, and charming but he is always looking to fill a void. He was not loved as a youth and now, as a grown man, no amount of money, sex, alcohol, or cigarettes is able to convince him that he is deserving of love or that he should accept himself.

Every single ounce of trouble he gets into over the course of Mad Men comes back to just this. He never realizes it and so he always falls into the same traps and relives the same cycles of behavior.

His “accomplishments” include:

• Cheating on both of his wives with a long lineup that includes: coworkers, his secretary, his children’s school teacher, the neighbors wife, and random waitresses.
• Crashing his car while drunk
• Turning away his younger brother leading to his suicide
• Stealing the identify of a man whose death he caused
• Descending into full blown alcoholism

He is always running from his past and he lives in constant fear that it will one day catch up with him. So he keeps up the façade but the pressure of living up to it eats away at him. This is why he consistently looking for an escape.

He once said “I have a life and it moves on direction…. forward”

Only when Don says this, it really means that on the rare occasion that his layers of deception fail him: he just plans on running away from the situation. He will abandon his family, his job, and his entire life to not have to confront his past. Donald Draper is tragic because he never learns that there are no true fresh starts in life. If you don’t look at your past critically and learn from your mistakes, you will continue to make them in the future. You can move to an entirely different part of the world but you would still be the same person. It must be exhausting to be Don.

Jax Teller – Sons Of Anarchy

 Lesson: If you don’t believe you can change, eventually you will be right

As tragic a character that there ever was.

At the beginning of Sons Of Anarchy he carries an aura of youth and idealism. He is fiercely devoted to his motorcycle club, SAMCRO, but has deep disdain for excessive violence and the illegal ventures the club is tied up in.

To me, Jax represents a gradual loss of hope that is all too real for many of us. He goes from trying to fulfill his late father’s vision, to steer SAMCRO towards peace and legitimacy, to eventually resigning himself to the understanding that he was destined to never be anything more than a criminal.

Of course, he didn’t get there overnight but slowly he turns into exactly what he sought to destroy: a violent, cold, and merciless killer.

His death sums up his life: ironic and tragic.

Squidward – SpongeBob

 Lesson: Don’t be a victim. You don’t get to complain about something in your life if it is within your power to change.

 Everyone’s favourite Squid who is actually an octopus but only has six legs so we call him Squidward.

DON’T BE LIKE SQUIDWARD

I should just leave it at that.

I think Squidward is kinder than he gets credit for, and more patient as well. Would you be much happier if you lived next to SpongeBob?

Yet, he has a tendency to play the victim card and indulge in self-pity.

Squidward is clearly insecure about where he is at in life. He is presumably into his 30s, at the very least, and he still works at a fast food joint. I would give him credit for owning a house if not for the fact that Patrick owns one as well so it can’t mean much in the Bikini Bottom universe. He wants to be admired and taken seriously as artist and musician but that hasn’t happened yet. When that doesn’t happen he looks anywhere but inward and then takes it out on others, mostly SpongeBob.

 

Instead of blaming others for his unhappiness, Squidward should work on himself!

• Practice the clarinet more so he can be a musician. If he really want’s a better job than being a cashier at the Krusty Krab, he is going to have to work at it.

 

• Stop comparing himself to others (especially Squilliam who seems to be everything Squidward wishes he was and has everything Squidward wishes he did) because that never does anyone any good at all.

 

• Smile and treat others better. I get it that SpongeBob is annoying but he’s still a good guy who clearly cares about you.

Squidward is what can happen if you choose inaction. You can’t have it both ways. Try and be better or otherwise sit tight. Don’t be a victim because no one likes that guy. Sorry Squidward.