I recently wrapped up a [[Pokemon Black]] replay and found myself more emotionally affected by it than I expected. I hadn’t played it since its original launch, when I was a teenager in high school. Going into the replay, I expected to be enthralled yet again by the game’s questioning of the morality around being a Pokemon Trainer. That examination is more paltry than I remembered, though still the most interesting a pokemon game’s story has ever been to me. But what seemed to have passed me by and which I find myself ruminating over now is the “B-plot” centered around your rivals, Cheren and Bianca. --- I am at a pretty bad place in my life, or at least a turning point. After [[The Pendulum of Grief|the end of a terrible relationship]], I also struggle with my identity as it comes to my career. I don’t like what I’m doing, but I don’t know what I want to do next — or if I even *can* shift to a new path. Cheren and Bianca experience a similar dilemma in **Black & White**. Cheren thinks he has a goal in mind to become “the strongest trainer,” but finds his foundation shaken by the people around him. What happens if he doesn’t hit that goal — an inevitability, given he’s not [[Hop is the Best|the main character of the game]]? And even if he *does* hit it, what then? Is being the strongest a goal even worth pursuing? What can you use that strength for? Bianca’s arc is even more relatable. Unlike Cheren, Bianca already knows she’s not the strongest trainer. Her father suffocates her ability to be independent, and she doesn’t feel like she’s good at anything in particular. It takes her most of the game’s runtime to figure out what she wants to do, and it involves a lot of trials and tribulations. Obviously real life will never be as clear-cut as it is for NPCs in a video game — at least, not for me. But it felt pretty strange, relating so acutely with this digital teen’s feeling of being abjectly lost, despite my big age. And it felt even weirder to be heartened by her arc. I’ve talked before about how [[Youth O Youth|there’s always time to become the person you want to be]], but I mostly spoke about that from the perspective of my personality and hobbies. But why can’t it apply to my career and relationships too? I don’t plan to let the fear of a job change slow me down anymore. Planning out a new path is stressful when so many difficult things are going on in my life, but it doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try. I might not become the best in the world at whatever I end up doing, and it might not pan out. But at least I won’t be sitting here filled with a nagging sense of anxiety that haunts the back of my mind, unsatisfied with the current state of affairs. Come 2026, I’m planning to make a lot of big changes that I’m looking forward to. However challenging it may end up being, I want to find a path that I’m satisfied with. That anxiety may never leave me, but I won’t let it win without a fight.