leveling up

this is your time to shine.  the moment you've been waiting for.  you've just trudged through Victory Road.  the door to Indigo Plateau is open, and you're ready to become a master.  you're ready to take on the Elite Four.

you've trained hard, you've fought well, and your team is ready.  you step into the first room to challenge the greatest trainers in the world.

then it happens.

WHAT!? that dewgong is LEVEL 54!?!  thats way more than your level 46 pokemon can handle.  and thats only the first trainer!!

now, to be real here, probably the first time most of us played the game we all just had our starter at a ridiculously high level and then the rest of our team was pathetic.  or full of legendary birds.  we stocked up on full restores and max revives just to keep our venusaur/charizard/blastoise alive till the end.  but i'm talking about the time you actually played it through to train your whole team, all your favorites to the end. and you just happen to find that they're underleveled

yeah, go figure.  whats more embarrassing than having your team roughly 6-10 levels under the trainers that you're challenging?  what could have gone wrong?  yo have enough type variability to take on anyone.  they evolved and became poweful.  you taught your pokemon great moves from their natural learning and TMs, and you made sure to get rid of those useless moves, like LEER.  you even had empathy with them.

but its still not enough.  you're going to have to go through the same grueling process that tormented you when you couldn't beat that boss in final fantasy.  you're gonna have to get outside, march through that tall grass, and start leveling up.

its the most boring part of any RPG.  you're not strong enough to beat the boss, so you have to fight whatever to get enough experience, GP, and strength points to get the job done.  you go out.  you fight.  you get beat up.  you go to the pokemon center or the inn.  and then you start over.  and over.  and over.  and walked.. and walked.. and walked....

then you get there. you're strong enough.  your team is in the mid 50's and they're ready to tear it up. 

you slap around the elite for like they're nothing.  then you get to the end.  the real deal.  the final battle with your rival.

yeah.  he means business now.  he's even got a flashy jacket on...

and well, what happens?  you own him.  like a pro.  why?  cause you trained, you battled, and you know whats going on.  all that leveling up made your team strong enough to spank his.  you knew what types to use and when.  great job, champ.  you're a pokemon master.



when it comes to things that really matter, we're pretty much all like pokemon trainers.  we all want to be the best.  like no one ever was.  but sometimes, when we get to where we want to be going, when we think our journey's over... we realize that we're a little bit underleveled.  we're not quite who we thought we were.  and that could be a bit embarrassing.

well what can we do now?  is that it?  is it over, are we destined to be losers?

um, no.  we're not.  we just need to do some leveling up.  we need to get our there and march through the tall grass so to speak, looking for wild pokemon to battle.

i feel like thats where a lot of us are right now.  pretty much everyone has something they want to get better at.  they want to reach that next level, maybe even evolve to a more powerful version of themselves.  so we get our there and hone our skills.  sometimes its hard, sometimes it hurts, and sometimes we get beat up.  and unlike the video games, there isn't always a pokemon center or an inn that we can go to that will instantly recover all our HP and make our problems go away.  we may not always have a fairy telling us where to go next or a professor to wisely tell us not to ride our bike indoors.

but also unlike the video games, the skills we gain now and the 'leveling up' we do in life will actually get us somewhere.  we'll be good at some cool job or something.  or we'll be good at helping people in some way.  some of us are fire types.. some of us can learn moves like razor leaf or water gun.

i guess the point is, that we're all good at things, and we all want to be way better than we really are.  we want things in our lives but its hard to wait for the right time or to have to work for them.  its like we're in the middle of the treacherous 'leveling up' phase.


but in the end, when you beat your rival, when you become a master its all worth it.  its just being there in the middle of it all that's the hard part.