My Learnings From Breaking Bad

The show is based on an antiheroic theme where a chemistry teacher diagnosed with lung cancer turns to selling meth to secure his family’s future. There are numerous scenes in this show that just leave you thinking about life.

Here are a few of them:

1) There’s a dialogue by drug kingpin Gus Fring to Walther White, “when you have children, you always have a family. They will always be your priority, your responsibility. And a man, a man provides. And he does it even when he’s not appreciated or respected or even loved. He simply bears up and he does it. Because he’s a man.”

Let me elaborate on the context of the dialogue, Walter White knew that he is a part of an illegal business and his family won’t appreciate it. So to convince Walter White to keep producing the Blue Meth. Gus Fring stated that dialogue in a way that not only convince Walter White but also remind him of the reason why he enters into the meth business.

Lesson: As a viewer, the dialogue explains that the primary motive of every man is to be a provider to a family. Being a provider doesn’t only mean supporting a family financially. It means more than that. A man should also provide emotional, spiritual, physical support to the family. He needs to understand that there are other things also, along with money, that need to be provided to the family.

2) Relationship between Walter White and his son is a treat to observe. Throughout the entire series, his son considered his uncle (Hank) as a hero and his father as an average boring chemistry teacher.

There’s a scene when the son gets caught by the police and was supposed to call his father to get out of the situation. But instead of calling his father Walter White, he called his uncle Hank.

Although, Walter White never tries to prove anything to his son. He knew he was about to die, so he had to make money to secure his family’s future. Eventually, they’ll get all the money that makes them proud of me.

Lesson: Don’t share the struggle with your family, as they’ll eventually get to know about everything you did for them.

3) Walter White was not only a chemistry genius but also a man of a high level of attention to detail skills. One such example of his skillset has been shown in the episode name, “Fly”.

When a fly enters the superlab, Walter White has stopped the meth production and embarks on an obsessive quest to kill it. He thinks the fly has contaminated the entire superlab.

He said to his partner, “This fly is a major problem for us: it will ruin our batch, and we need to destroy it and every trace so we can cook. Failing that, we’re dead. There’s no more room for error, not with these people.”

Being detail-oriented helped him produce the finest quality meth, which is why his produced blue meth is always in demand.

Lesson: To achieve success in your work, you need to have strong attention to detail skills that increase accuracy and productivity and decrease error.

Conclusion

Here is a saying I believe in, “if you really wanna know how much you’ve changed in a year, watch your favourite series every year”.

I watched Breaking bad twice to see how differently I look at things. The show has broadened my perspective and made me realize how much I’ve changed in a year.

Also, there are thousands of life lessons is in the series. If you haven’t watched it, give it a shot. There’s a reason this series is all time IMDB highest rating series.