It’s not often that you can find a movie franchise successful enough to do six movies without having a reboot halfway through. Hell it’s hard enough for Hollywood to even make a successful trilogy. And yet not too long after the release of Fast & Furious 6, the creators of the franchise seem to have found a way to simply do that. The question is: how? Having finished watching the sixth movie I got a quick reminder on what it is that keeps people coming back for more, and without giving spoilers, I can assure you it’s from some common themes throughout all of the movies that don’t just involve cars.

Seamlessly Incorporate Hobbies Into Your Life

Too often people tell others to get a hobby. And too often hobbies start to interfere with life. The reason is because hobbies get serious for the person involved with them while others who don’t partake in said activity don’t understand. This is why it’s important to develop a life around a hobby.

As quickly as the first Fast and Furious movie it’s shown that the characters are developed together as a family rather than just race friends. What drew them all together however was their hobby of cars. Having struggled enough myself with arguing over hobbies with friends, family, and girlfriends in the past, I’ve learned really quickly to fuse hobbies into your life. It’ll save you a bigger headache when you have lasting relationships with people who actually understand what you enjoy whether it’s a bro who lifts weights with you or a woman who wants’ to help tune a car.

Find Your Mexico

The first 16 seconds of the clip above explains the idea of finding your Mexico perfectly. While this is a vastly different concept depending on each person’s concept, the idea of finding your Mexico is meaningful. For myself it was Minnesota, for one of my best friends it was Georgia. For some of you, it may be as simple as moving twenty minutes from where you life now or as complicated as moving all the way to Thailand.

The idea behind finding your Mexico is simple. Everyone at some point will want to try to build a new life and the only way to do that is to find a new place. For some it’s to find a place where no one knows their past and for others it’s as simple as finding a place where they just feel they belong. The point is, find wherever it is that you can find peace, security, and happiness.

Winning Is Winning

The above is one of my favorite clips from the franchise because it’s 100% truthful. When it comes to life, sports, women, racing, whatever, winning is winning. Contrary to the Nancy talk that society tries to spread to today’s youth that winning doesn’t matter, it plain and simply does. If you go to the bar and another dude leaves with your girl, no one is going to give you props for having almost left with her.  You’re only going to get props for having gotten the notch yourself. And everything in life is the same way. Winning is all that matters, second place counts for nothing. The quicker you realize this the less frustration you’ll deal with later.

Your Friends Are Your Family

Most people tend to associate their best friends as family, but few people I know seem to truthfully look at those friends as actual family. Unless you’ve moved away from your family like I have, you likely haven’t had the fortunate insight to realize that your friends might not be blood but they can be your family.

Luckily, back home I had another group of friends close enough to be family so the concept wasn’t too shocking after moving. Having moved away, however, has helped me realize how important your friends can be. Friends can be your family and often are. And in rare cases, the can be more important than your family. Not every bro has to be your brother, but finding one that is will make your life a whole lot more interesting and meaningful.

Family Is Everything

This is probably the best lesson learned from the franchise, and is shown as quickly as the first film. Your family is everything. Whether it be your actual family related by blood, or your best friends that you’ve met throughout life, never lose site of the importance of your family. Every man no matter how tough he pretends to be will hit a period where life is rough. Your family will get you out of those rough spots that we all pretend to be too macho to relate to.

Obviously one could draw many more lessons from this franchise, the ones provided are almost limitless. In my opinion though, these are the ones that ring truest to life and towards the vast majority of the franchises audience.

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