7 Life Lessons from Star Trek

I’m a bit of a Star Trek fan.  But I have it under control now…honest!

Yes, I admit when I was young I would use my lego set to create an arsenal of phasers neatly arranged on my window shelf…set for stun of course!  And yes, my friends and I would practice the Vulcan Neck Pinch on each other because, after all, it hurt pretty good and maybe, just maybe, we could get it to work after all; then we’d be famous.  And of course I could discuss the reasons why a 1 to 1 ratio, dilinthium focused matter / anti-matter annihilation was necessary for optimal warp field entry with the best of them.  (How else were we ever going to coax our engines past Warp 4???)

Some things you grow out of…some you don’t. 

So when I saw David Borgenicht’s article in the Huffington post “7 Life Lessons I learned from Star Trek” I realized he was on to something.  So with proper citation to Mr. Borgenicht, I’d like to reprint those seven lessons at Beyond the Pale because…well…I pretty much agree with everyone of them*.

1.The best way to travel is to boldly go where no one has gone before. This is true for vacations, for self-exploration, for life itself. If you want your days filled with adventure, laughter, love, learning and the occasional mind-meld, follow this route.

2.The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few–or the one. Sometimes you must make great sacrifices for the greater good. And, like the Genesis device, it will all come back around.

3.Expressing your emotions is a healthy thing. Sure, McCoy seemed angry all the time when exclaiming, “Dammit, Jim! I’m a doctor not a mechanic/bricklayer/soothsayer,” but he knew that by expressing his anger and frustration it wouldn’t get the best of him and he could then perform at his peak capacity.

4.When estimating how long a job will take, overestimate–and when you do better your captain will always be impressed. Replace the word “captain” with “teacher” or “mom/dad” and you’ll see what I mean. Sure, Mr. Scott might have been telling the truth–maybe it would take six hours to get the warp engines back online in the heat of the battle. Or maybe he was padding things so he looked good. Either way, when the engines did come back on line, everyone was happy.

5.Wearing red makes you a target. This is true of cars, dresses and, most especially, shirts. Red gets you noticed–which is good if you want to be noticed, bad if you don’t want to end up vaporized.

6.When you don’t know what to say, pause. It will give you the time to figure it out. Or at the very least, you’ll sound like you’re being thoughtful. “But….Spock…..why?”

7.The most powerful force in the universe is friendship. It’s more powerful than phasers, photon torpedos, even more powerful than the force itself. With friends, you can accomplish any task, escape any perilous situation, defeat any enemy–and you get to laugh together when it’s all over.*

* Actually (Steve here again) I’m still going to give “the most powerful force in the Universe” to God…but friendship is a nice runner up 🙂