Maybe you're not the protagonist

We’re constantly taught to see life as a movie, and to believe we’re the main character.

Since we’re the protagonist, all current setbacks are just temporary.

Although we don’t know how it’ll happen, as long as we keep watching Netflix, scrolling through YouTube, browsing TikTok, and playing mobile games, someday we’ll become powerful and eventually get our well-deserved happy ending.

Maybe we’ll meet a mysterious old master who turns out to be the world’s greatest expert with thousands of years of experience. Of course, we definitely possess some rare, hard-to-discover amazing talent.

Or we’ll accidentally fall off a cliff and find a powerful wand, plus stumble upon a unique world-class crash course manual. What takes others ten years, we’ll master in just 3 days, and our skill quality will surpass their decade of training.

Or maybe a tsundere beauty or domineering CEO will pursue us and start a romantic comedy, ultimately living happily ever after.

Maybe our luck is really that bad, and we die unsatisfied in this life. That’s okay. Because we’re the protagonist.

Even if we die, we can be reincarnated in another world as the strongest mage, worshipped by everyone, or be reborn with all our knowledge and go back to high school to get back at those who annoyed us.

Yup…

If we think about it seriously and rationally, we know this is all just fantasy. If we actually believe it’ll happen, it’s laughable. No one is coming to save us. The only one who can save us is ourselves. And the only thing we can grasp is now, the only time we can act is now.

The funny thing is, so much of the literature, movies, and anime we consume daily follow these tropes, influencing how our brains think, making us fantasize about “later,” “tomorrow,” “someday,” or “being a late bloomer.”

Time to wake up. By definition, except for a few individuals, no one in this world is the protagonist. If this were a game, we’re all just regular players. Continuing to sink into this, immersing ourselves in other people’s works won’t lead to any growth. Without any action, there’ll be no progress, and we’ll remain low-level players with no achievements.

We’re not the protagonist, but that’s actually liberating.

No need to wait for fate’s arrangements, no need to expect serendipitous encounters, no need to fantasize about someone coming to rescue us.

We’re just regular players. But regular players who grind daily, level up daily, can gradually shine.

The real problem was never that we’re not the protagonist.

It’s that we don’t even want to be regular players—we just want to lie around waiting for a beautiful ending.