How One Piece Helped Me

Luffy and his crew, the Strawhats

People usually think I'm crazy for starting One Piece in 2024, but finding a way to enjoy the famously long-running anime has helped me develop traits that spilled over into my creative endeavors.

Routine

Step by step, episode by episode. That is how you complete a project or finish a show. You don't learn what you need to by simply finding yourself at the end point, you have to experience it. An easy way to implement this is making it a part of my day just like anything else. Every day I make my bed. Every day I go for a walk. They're not "necessary" but they make up my routine. Why not add saving twenty minutes for an episode of One Piece? In this same way, I learned how to save the same kind of time for a piece of a larger project. Before I know it, I've completed an arc or a book. ... In order to achieve this, I had to achieve:

Zoro, training on the ship.

Patience

In order to enjoy the show despite how overwhelming it appeared once I started, I had to remind myself that I wouldn't be finished in a day. Making peace with the fact that I'd be chugging along for some time without reaching the end goal was instrumental to my "success" (my version of this word is the moral victory over myself to work on my dream). Taking my time getting to know the characters and their plights is just like putting in the hours to learn my craft. You cannot brute force your results. I had to realize that taking my time preserved my sanity. I know aging played its part, haha! It's also increasing my enjoyment of the journey so I'm not so anxious about the destination.

Nico Robin reading.

Commitment

Just like Luffy working towards becoming the king of the pirates and achieving total freedom or Nami working towards charting the entire globe and getting tons of money, I feel like now that I've articulated it, my dream is on par with theirs: building a literal wall of books, book by book, brick by brick! I can imagine myself telling someone curious about my dream and the sentimental music from the show starts playing. Seeing the lengths that the people on this show will go to makes me feel empowered to be just as crazy as Monkey D Luffy. Blind faith in achieving my dream, and the madness required to try.

Luffy climbing up the mountain on Drum Island.

I know it’s common for people to pull inspiration from anime, especially one of the most popular ones of all time. However, I just wanted to share just HOW I was affected by not even just the show itself, but also by how making space for the show made space for other things in my life.