What I Learned from “How I Met Your Mother”

As everyone that lives outside of a cave, How I Met Your Mother has ended after nine seasons this Monday. And, as a huge fan, I decided to say a few words on the lessons that the Legendary! show has taught me.

I’m going to miss you guys :’)

1. That while love will require at least several sacrifices, you should not sacrifice things you want in a relationship. From the beginning, Ted has been madly in love with Robin, and has even made a pact with her to get married if they were both single by the time they were forty. But Robin didn’t want the things that Ted did: a serious relationship that ended in marriage and children. So they stayed broken up and ended up both being happy (well, until the Mother died, and Robin and Barney got divorced. Did I mention, spoilers?). Love is beautiful, but it isn’t meaningful (at least to me) unless you both want the same things out of the relationship.

2. Challenge Yourself. Those familiar with this famous series is aware of the notorious character named “Barney Stinson”, whose most famous catchphrases are “Challenge Accepted!” and “Legen-WAIT FOR IT…-Dary!” I gotta admit though, the “Challenge Accepted” can be used for real mundane life situations. Barney pushes himself (though I’ll admit I’m disgusted by the goals he makes) to get whatever he wants and he never admits defeat (well, unless you count that time he forfeited his own challenge of getting a girl to sleep with him after he talked like a baby) and he gets what he wants. I use this “catchphrase” every time I want to finish a mountain of homework in less than three hours. And it goes beyond just doing homework or sleeping around. Life is full of challenges and if in order to become confident to do them is to simply say “Challenge Accepted” and then wink at empty space and give yourself a high five, do it!

3.Whatever you do with a camera is forever. Miss Canada Teen Pop Sensation Miss Robin Sparkles knows what I mean. Her shows and her songs were captured with relatively primitive cameras, but they survived long enough for a certain Mr. Stinson to find them and put them up on the Internet. So it really no longer matters where your pictures are or whether or not they’re digital; in this day and age, paper pictures are easily scanned and uploaded, and camera phones are a baby’s toy when it comes to sharing things. And nobody knows that better than the non-teenage Robin; her pranks on-air that she was paid for by Barney ended up being found by her co-workers at World Wide News. This very article may only get one or two views, but that’s just for now.

Ok, so I knew all of these things before. But it’s really nice to have it reinforced.

Consequences/Abortion

If anybody really knows me, they know I watch an outdated show called, “Sex and the City”. To be brief about this show, I’ll just say it’s about four best friends living in Manhattan and paving their way through their thirties (and in one woman’s case-her forties) with fun, cosmos (apparently some kind of alcoholic drink), sex and boyfriends in tow (in at least one woman’s case- her two husbands in tow). Those who have watched this show know exactly what I’m talking about. But every action gets a reaction-as anybody knows from life. Hell, I even figured it out and I’m only in high school. In the show’s case, the reaction to the action is the possibility of Abortion.
Now, if you haven’t been living under a rock the past couple of years, you know that Abortion has been a very controversial topic, one that anybody who has been even slightly paying attention to will understand and take part in. Most conservatives are pro-life, which means they are against any legal abortion, they are against anybody in any circumstances having an abortion. Stereotypical liberals are pro-choice, which means they are okay with legal abortion, while they might not get abortions themselves. And now here is the question: what the hell does it have to do with Sex and the City?
Well, I’ll tell you. In the episode I had just finished watching, the lawyer has gotten pregnant by her ex-boyfriend, while another woman, the housewife (that used to work at a gallery) is trying to get pregnant but isn’t successful. The lawyer is thinking of getting an abortion without telling her ex, who got her pregnant. The housewife is upset. Anyway, that’s the synopsis of the episode. What is interesting about this particular episode, is the question (at least for me) it raises. Is it okay to get an abortion, and is it okay to do it without your sexual partner knowing you got pregnant in the first place? That’s the dilemma that the lawyer faces. And after watching a scene where the remaining two women talk about how they got abortions and they didn’t tell the sexual partners (at the time) that they were pregnant, I got to thinking, (how Carrie Bradshaw is that?) do your partners have a say in keeping your baby, or is it your personal decisions that count?
Personally, I think that if you really do want an abortion, and that nothing is going to stop you from making that decision, then you owe it to your sexual partner to at least let them know. If you’re unsure, then you should especially let your partner know so you can make the best decision possible. In the end, the consequences are yours to experience. Sex has consequences: pregnancy and STI’s are the worst case scenarios.
Of course, sex isn’t the only action that could have a serious life-changing reaction. Though this show is of course mostly about sex, (the title should make it obvious) there are other things that can backfire. Marrying someone super quick should be a no-no, but if you do it, then you have an increased chance of divorce.
Life is full of consequences, but this is one specific post about them. And remember, this is only the beginning of this debate. I used abortion because this is one of the many issues that we will have to go over and over again. And no, I won’t offer a concrete opinion on this subject.