Lessons learned in Harry Potter

Today is Harry Potter's Neville Longbottom's and J.K. Rowling's birthday. I acknowledge this day every year because I really love the Harry Potter series. I am one of the people that grew up in what I like to call the "HP generation."  I was a kid/teenager during the time the books and movies were being released. I waited in suspense and excitement for the next book to be released. I celebrated the release of each movie. I felt an exciting bond with other people in the HP generation, whether I knew them personally or not. It was like that for almost everybody that spent their formative years reading the book series and watching the movies. And yes, I even went to midnight release parties of the movies (and the 7th book) and had the time of my life. People not in this generation usually don't "get it." Those people might ask, "Why does Harry Potter have such a cult following? Why do all these kids (most of us not being young adults) practically pretend this fictional world is real? Why do they always go back to reading the books over again?"

I am going to let someone with a degree in anthropology figure those questions. For this blog, right now, I will just list the lessons I personally learned from the Harry Potter series, as a way to record some of the impact it had on my life. I wish I had the time to go into detail about how these lessons were learned and how my life changed, but I don't so it's going to be a quick list.

1. "It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live" Dumbledore says it best.
2. Our choices truly make up who we are, much more than our abilities, and even our potential. We can choose to be a better person, even if we have so much ability to do wrong. Even if we gravitate towards something that is wrong.
3. Most people are not clear-cut "good" or "bad." Everybody has a past, and everybody makes mistakes.
4. You don't have to be weighed down by other people's judgments. It's okay not to fit in with the crowd and just be happy with your own interests and personality.
5. You can tell a lot about a person by the way they treat their inferiors. In fact, someone truly worth being around doesn't really believe in "inferiors."
6. The world is full of prejudice. But in the end, not one race or culture does it best.
7. People need to have more control and choices than the government does.
8. Keeping your cool and being humble and polite with protect you more than being angry and defensive.
9. Knowledge is power!