If you’re a Millennial Dad, chances are you’ve seen quite the number of movies growing up. I myself am kind of a movie buff and there’s one movie that I tend to always go back and watch from time to time. That movie is Watchmen. It’s an extremely dark super hero movie directed by Zack Snyder.

If you’re familiar with Zack Snyder’s work, you know he made other popular movies like 300 and just most recently the re-release of his cut of the Justice League, which was so much better than the original release for sure.

As I was planning out this video, I knew I wanted to do a movie breakdown where I could extract some key principles from a movie. It was either this one, Nacho Libre, or Kung Pao. Something told me to go with Watchmen.

Before it was a movie, it was a graphic novel, which is just a fancy way of saying a pretty good book with a lot of pictures. If you’ve never read the book or watched the movie, just warning you now that there will be big spoilers ahead as I dive into each of these principles.

The basic premise of the story is this is a world where superheroes exist, but a lot of these so called heroes, don’t really have powers. They are literally just people in costumes fighting crime. Granted some of them are extremely smart and well skilled, almost like a bunch of Batmen roaming the streets. There’s really only one character in the entire story that has powers and that’s Mr. Manhattan, who is practically like a god. (More on that later)

So the movie starts off with a murder of this hero named the Comedian, who was one of the original Watchmen. At this point, all these heroes are kind of old and most of them are retired. This murder of the Comedian, who by the way was a complete asshole, sets one of the main characters Rorschach on an investigation to figure out who killed him.

Rorschach starts developing this theory that somebody is taking out these old heroes, so he pays all the ones still alive a visit and gives them the heads up. This sets the movie into motion and you start getting flashbacks of all of these heroes. You start seeing how broken all of these people are.

Rorschach, who is my personal favorite character in this entire thing embodies the first principle I wanna share with you.

1. Question Everything

Even though the Comedian was an asshole, Rorschach still decides to question his murder. He still decides to question everything and investigate what actually is going on. He’s concerned with finding out the Truth.

Most dads nowadays, simply sit there and accept whatever is said to them, without question. Especially when they’re being told what to do by a higher authority. When you’re told by a teacher that your kid has some sort of disorder that keeps him or her from learning, so we need to pump your kid with a drug to keep him or her focused. Do you just accept it?

When your boss tells you that your raise is not in the budget right now and you just accept it, without question. When your wife tells you she’s going out with friends, but you notice she ain’t taking her wedding ring with her and she’s got her best dress on.

When the government tries to tell you what to do, what to wear, who to socialize with, how to think, and how to handle your own healthcare, and you accept it without question. You are doing the exact opposite of what Rorschach does.

You see, most men nowadays love comfort so much, that they choose not to question things. They don’t wanna be bothered with the actual truth of any given situation because the truth is ugly. The truth is uncomfortable. The truth actually sets you free, it’s not just a nice saying. It actually liberates you because it puts you in a position where you know the facts.

You can actually do something with the truth. But with lies, you will run around in circles wandering aimlessly. I challenge you to question everything. If something seems sketchy as hell to you. If a person seems sketchy as hell to you. Vet that shit until you know what the truth is because your family depends on you. Do not just accept something as true simply because it’s coming from a person that has more authority than you.

Whether they have more “authority” doesn’t mean jack shit. There was a time where almost every scientist believed the earth was flat and they ridiculed the dude that discovered it was round, even though he had proof. Now, most scientists believe the earth is round and they ridicule those that still think that it’s flat.

My point is, don’t just accept everything as truth. Question it and don’t stop questioning it until you have discovered the truth because only then will you be able to make an informed decision that can benefit or tear down you and your family’s life.

2. Kill Your Villains

There’s a moment in the film where we get a flashback of one of Rorschach’s first outings as a hero. He’s investigating the kidnapping of a six year old girl and it leads him to the culprit’s house. He’s too late. He finds the remains of the girl in a furnace and sees that the murderers dogs are in the backyard fighting over the girl’s bones. The killer was not home, so Rorschach decides to wait for him to come home.

He kicks the killers ass and ties him to the furnace, gets the confession out of him. Very quickly the killer starts begging for his life and asks Rorschach to arrest him and take him in. He says, “there’s something wrong with me man, arrest me, I need to be admitted somewhere.” You can see Rorschach struggling with himself battling over what the right thing to do was.

You see, he knows that if he arrests him and turns him in, this dude is gonna go to jail. He’s gonna get free housing, with 3 meals a day. If he pleads insanity and they find him mentally ill, he’ll go to an institution where he’ll get free housing and 3 meals a day. This guy just kidnapped and murdered a 6 year old girl, and he wants to work the system in order to not suffer the ultimate consequence.

Rorschach makes a decision and you know what he does. He takes a butcher knife and goes to town on this dude’s head.

Yeah it’s an extremely gruesome movie, not for the feint of heart. But this scene is very powerful because it depicts the difference between Rorshach and someone like Batman who doesn’t kill.

Rorschach does what’s necessary and he kills his villains. There’s no Return of the Joker for this guy. Now before you start wilding out in the comments, I’m not saying go out and be a vigilante and do this.

What I want you to extract from this is that you have a number of villains in your own life. Whether it’s an addiction to alcohol, porn, video games, cheating, gambling, anger, fear, false beliefs, anything really that keeps you from being the hero of your own story. Anything that keeps you from creating the family life you want is a villain in your story. And you need to stop letting these villains live. They don’t deserve any sequels as they have done enough harm in your life. Why give them more power over your life?

Kill your villains.

3. Guard Your Inner Circle

Big spoiler alert if you haven’t watched this movie. The main bad guy ends up being one of their own team mates from the Watchmen. I may be butchering his name here, so forgive me internet if that’s possible, Ozymandius or the World’s Smartest Man as he was also known. This movie takes place during the 80s I believe and there’s tensions between Russia and the U.S., talks of WW3, you know, nothing like our present day events, right?

The point is good ol’ Ozymandius devices an elaborate plan to resolve this conflict himself by making Dr. Manhattan seem like a global threat. Nothing unites powerful countries on the brink of war like having a Common Enemy. In that process, he kills a whole bunch of people including some of our heroes. This dude is the worst kind of evil. The type of evil that believes wholeheartedly that it is doing the right thing. Sort of a greater good scenario, kinda like Thanos wanting to wipe out half the universe’s population just because he’s a philanthropist.

Anyways getting back to Watchmen, once this big bad is revealed it comes as a shock to our heroes because this is one of their own guys. And this is what happens sometimes in your own friendships or relationships if you don’t guard your inner circle. Sometimes those that we think are our closest friends are the first to turn on us. The first to abandon us or leave us to fend for ourselves simply because it’s in their character to do so. We just never thought it would happen to us.

As a family man, you not only have to guard who you let into your life as friends, but also who you let into your kid’s life. Their friends at school, the kids on their soccer team, heck even the kids they hang out with at church. Some people think just because it’s a church, it automatically prevents bad people from coming into your life. Quite the opposite, some of the most horrible people I’ve ever met, were church goers and still to this day I will not let those people near my family.

Guard your circle, don’t just let people in without actually having an understanding of their character and values. If that person doesn’t edify you and your family, remove them from your life and don’t look back. You don’t wanna end up later on discovering that they were the main bad guy the whole time.

4. Your Family Is A Miracle

I mentioned earlier that the character known as Dr. Manhattan is the only one in the entire movie with actual powers. And I mean this dude has powers. He can disintegrate you just by pointing a finger at you. He can multiply himself, teleport, morph into a big ass blue giant, and even create life on Mars, like this dude is full on god mode right? Yet, at his core he’s still human because he holds on to the one thing that no human can live without and that is Love.

He loves this girl Laurie, one of the other heroes, so he takes her to Mars because why not? And as he’s declaring himself to this girl, he makes mention of something that to this day I think is very powerful realization. He goes on to say that due to his powers, he’s witnessed the tiniest change in the smallest of molecules and atoms and he understands how it all works. But the one thing he can’t grasp is how out of all of the millions of possibilities when she was born, how it was her that actually came to be. She is a miracle to him that even with all his god like powers, he cannot understand it.

Think about this with regards to your own life. The very fact that you and your family exist right now is nothing short of a miracle. Out of the millions and millions of sperm cells that rushed towards that egg, you were the freakin winner. Then think about all of the things that had to happen for you to meet your wife. Then out of the millions upon millions of sperm cells that rushed that egg, your kids came to be. All with their distinct characteristics and personalities. I don’t know about you, but that shit is incredible to me.

If one piece of this elaborate chess game called my life would have been played differently, I may not have met my wife and my kids would not exist. Literally just one piece played differently. I guess this is why time travel is such a sensitive topic. My point is, you and your family are a miracle.

It’s time that you start viewing your life that way because when you do, your drive and motivation to advance in life shifts from an “I have to” mentality to an “I get to” mentality. Be grateful for the miracle that is you and your family and work hard to preserve and edify it.

If you’ve stuck around with me this far, I wanna give you a good place to start by having you check out my FREE Workshop the top of this page, where I walk you through 3 key secrets that helped me create the family life I wanted.

I was on the brink of divorce, broke living paycheck to paycheck, stuck at a dead end job with mountains of debt, and I honestly wanted to end it all. I didn’t see my life or my family as a miracle. There was a point where I saw myself as an unnecessary part of the equation and I thought I was the villain.

Thank God for a mentor of mine who I call Pops that came in and showed me a way to break free from that and shift my entire mindset. I don’t know where you’re at in your life right now, but if any of this resonated with you, I would encourage you to go check out the workshop and may these principles that I learned aid you in creating the family life you want.

That is gonna wrap it up for us today.

Until next time my fellow Alpha Dad,
- G. Vidal