For years now I’ve been wanting to pen an essay entitled “Everything I Need to Know in Life I Learned from Xena: Warrior Princess.”  This Abecedarium has finally given me my chance!

“Xena: Warrior Princess” is a TV show that aired for seven years, spanning the late 1990’s into the early 2000’s.  It followed the exploits and adventures of a warrior woman and her trusty “sidekick” Gabrielle as they fought injustice, Greek Gods, and an anachronistic list of historical figures (she fought both Julius Ceasar and Alexander the Great, among many others).  The show aired at a pivotal time in my life and became an important touchstone for me.  It began shortly after I got dumped from a relationship and found myself living alone for the first time since grad school.  It aired from the transition to my expat assignment in Mexico all the way through my transition back to the US.  At a time when my life seemed upended in almost every way imaginable, it was a constant.  And, thanks to email listserves in those early years of the commercial internet, provided a community that I could take with me from place to place.

The show, which on the surface seemed really cheesy, was brilliantly written and quickly became a cult success.  I happened upon it by accident (it ran on a second tier network) and was hooked immediately.  There was strong lesbian subtext between Xena and Gabrielle at a time when there were vanishingly few positive gay roles on TV, and the writers played that up as they realized the show caught on quickly with the gay community.  But more than that, Xena was a deeply developed character with conflicting strengths and flaws who served up a number of life lessons.  Herewith, what Xena has taught me:

Stay focused on winning the war, not each and every battle.  Xena always had clarity on her goals and recognized when she needed to walk away from one battle to be able to win the war.  She did have an uncanny way of being able to clean up those loose ends by the end of each episode, but the point was that you had to stay focused on the bigger goal.  Many of us have the tendency to want to win every single battle we are faced with and end up expending so much energy that we never achieve the big goals we were really after.  This is important in your work life as well as relationships.  We’ve all heard the maxim “Pick your battles.”  Xena knew which ones were important.

Never, ever, lose your moral compass.  Xena didn’t just keep in mind what the bigger goals were, she also stayed loyal to WHY those were the bigger goals.  It may have seemed like she was selling out her morals at times, but she knew what she was doing and always came back to the “right” side.  It is easy in life to be seduced into compromising your principles to achieve a goal that you think is important.  Often, though, the money or the job or the “prize” was never as satisfying as you thought—or the brightness was dimmed by what you gave up to achieve it.  Deep down, WHO we are is much more important than WHAT we have accomplished.  Some people have stuffed that realization down so deeply that they never reconcile their actions with their negative impact.  Most of us do have that better angel on our shoulder, though.   Listen to it.

When you have that clarity of purpose, don’t give up.  Time and time again, it would seem like Xena was defeated yet she’d find some way to prevail.  Once she knew what she had to do, she was unstoppable.  I will admit to not having that degree of intestinal fortitude.  I have rarely been able to attain that kind of clarity.  I have always harbored too much doubt.  That’s why I could never be a successful entrepreneur.  I need too much validation and support to be able to persist in front of a mountain of obstacles.  However, I have learned to persist in small ways, and it always comes back to reminding myself what is truly important.

Stay loyal to those who stay loyal to you.  This may sound like a mob creed (and maybe it is), but you know who you truly love and care about and who returns that commitment to you.  Keep those people close and do whatever you have to do to support them.  These are, in turn, the people you can count on.  Certainly, Xena would do anything to get Gabrielle out of jam, but she also put herself on the line more than once to get Joxer out of trouble.  He was the annoying comedic foil in the show but he had a heart of gold and Xena knew it.  The people you need to pay attention to in your life are not always the loudest and most insistent.  Often, they are the quietest and most unassuming.  Treasure and protect them.

Don’t take yourself too seriously.  My favorite episodes are mostly the funny ones.  By your comments, it seems your favorite essays of mine are usually the lighthearted ones!  We all like to laugh and find the humor in daily life.  That doesn’t mean that you can’t learn important lessons at the same time.  We are all works in progress and full of contradictions.  That’s what makes us human.  Learning to look at ourselves clearly and find the humor in our flaws is a form of grace and a way to learn to love yourself for just who you are.  It’s also the best way to learn to love those around us for just who THEY are.  No one is flawless.  Learn to laugh at those imperfections while you work to change the ones in yourself, and mitigate the impact of those you don’t.

In the end, Xena and Gabrielle did not sail off into the sunset together.  Initially, I was pissed, as was most of the broader fan community.  Over time, I saw that it was the most fitting ending to the series and consistent with the character the writers had built.  Xena sacrificed herself for the greater good, even though she had the chance to come back from the dead and be with Gabrielle.  (She had reanimated several times during the series.)  She stayed true to her moral compass until the very end and that’s a goal we should all embrace.