Some of you may be asking, “What the hell is a Bandersnatch?!” So in case you missed the cool bus last year, let me explain what I’m referring to. Black Mirror: Bandersnatch is an interactive Netflix movie that allows viewers to make decisions for the main character throughout the film.
As you’re watching the movie, you are presented with opportunities to choose what will happen next. When an opportunity is presented, you have 10 seconds to make a decision, or a decision is made for you — the default scenario plays out. Once that scenario finishes playing, you can go back and choose a different scenario to play.
At the end of the film, you have the option to choose a different critical choice that allows you to explore other possible endings.
There are several ways the film can end based on the choices you make as you watch, and there are even endings that are harder to reach than others, based on the combination of decisions made. The producer calls those endings that are harder to reach “golden eggs”.
It’s a pretty cool concept for a film and definitely fun to interact as you watch. If you think about it, it’s a lot like real life.
Every minute, hour, day, week, and month, we get to make decisions that determine how the story of our lives will play. Instead of pressing a button on a remote control, we take actions or we don’t. The decision to do one or the other affects the entire story and determines how it will end.
Of course, we can’t control everything in our lives — some things play out without any input from us — just like in Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, but those things we can control, we should.
We control what and how we think. We can make a choice to have a mindset of resiliency, where we are strong, capable and diligent about fostering positive thoughts, or we can choose to have a mindset of submission, where we fold easily when things get tough, doubt ourselves relentlessly and allow negative thoughts to play on repeat.
We control who we allow in our lives. We can make a choice to surround ourselves with healthy relationships from people who are loving, understanding, and supportive, or we can choose to allow toxic people — who drain us of our productive energy, backbite, and sabotage us at every turn — to be in our lives.
We control the energy we give other people. We can make a choice to be honest, upstanding individuals who treat others with respect and kindness, no matter how much their lives differ from ours, or we can choose to be hateful, judgmental, and unkind to those whom we may not understand.
We control whether we pursue our purpose and follow our dreams in life. We can make a decision to do the work it takes to build the life we’ve conceived — no matter how hard that work may be or how difficult it is to figure out the combination of choices it takes to get there, or we can make a decision to live with what-ifs, regrets, and an unfulfilled purpose because we were too afraid to try.
We control whether we are thoughtful and intentional in how we live. When we are presented with the opportunity to choose how our story will go, we can take action and make a decision that leads us to our chosen destiny, or we can make no decision and allow life to happen to us, letting the default scenario be chosen for us.
So if we think of our lives as a movie we have never seen, we have no way of knowing how each scene in the movie will end. Just like the movie Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, we are given opportunities to make choices that affect how the story goes. We make those choices, then we sit back and watch the scenario play out. If we make a choice that we don’t like, we can usually go back and try a different choice. If we don’t make a choice at all, then we have no control over how the story ends.
It’s up to you how your movie will go. Will you be a spectator in the movie of your life, or will you be actively involved in making the decisions that can help you find your golden egg?
I hope you will be the latter.