The Commercial That Changed My Life

Commercials are everywhere. Whether on T.V or on YouTube, we all see at least a couple every single day. Most people don't like commercials, and it's understandable why; we want to watch a show or movie and semi-frequent breaks throughout filled with ads can get a bit annoying. Sometimes the commercials vacuum cleaners or car dealerships, but sometimes the commercials we see are for video games.

The year is 2010. I was 8 years old at the time, and had just gotten a DSi for Christmas. I was just sitting by the T.V one day, watching a show on Cartoon Network (I can't remember for the life of me what show it was) when the commercials came out. I, being young and bored, went into the other room to play with something else until the show came back on. When I walked back into the room, the commercial that changed my life began to play.

It was a commercial for Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver. I had never even heard of the Pokemon series before then. It seemed fascinating to me. There were these tiny monsters following a kid my age around a city. I had never seen anything like it! What really caught my interest back then was the fact that the game came out on my birthday. That sold it for me; I had to get this game!

I went up to my mother and told me that I wanted the game. When she asked me which one, I said I wanted HeartGold. 'Gold is better than silver.' my young, naive mind reasoned. A couple of days latter, she told me she had pre-ordered SoulSilver, I was a bit disappointing, but I really didn't care.

So the day finally rolled around. My 9th birthday, March 14th 2010. My mother held out her hand and showed me the game. I popped it in my DSi before we even left the Walgreen's parking lot where we were at. I loved the game just as much as I thought I would. It took about a month or so, but I finished the first half of the game, playing it as often as I could.

That Pokemon game was the start of my long time love of the series. It has truly shaped my life and interests in a way I never imaged it would. One example is the avatar I use on most of my accounts on the Internet. It is a picture of my Minecraft skin, which is the player from Pokemon SoulSilver. My favorite color is silver. It's odd how many things it influenced in my life.

I said earlier that I originally wanted Pokemon HeartGold instead of SoulSilver, however it only took a couple of hours of playing SoulSilver that made me realize how wrong I was. It has become one of my favorite games of all time, but I would have never seen it had it not been for that commercial coming on at that exact time.

A minute long commercial, seemingly so small and insignificant, changed my life forever. I probably would have gotten into the Pokemon series at some point anyway, but it would have been much later in my life had it not not been for that small advertisement.

That is the message in this post: it's the small things. The little things change your life. The big things change your life too, of course, but we all see that coming. No, the small things that we don't expect to change anything can, and sometimes will, change everything. Don't disregard something due to its seeming insignificance. It might be a walk in the park, or a drive down a street you had never been down before. Or, in some odd cases, it might be a commercial for a Pokemon game.