I think we all feel like Hiccup sometimes. When it comes to finding a job, at least, I have a lot in common with him.

Hiccup’s Attempt to Fit in

At the start of How to Train Your Dragon, Hiccup is surrounded by strong Vikings who have impressive jobs. Meanwhile, his skillset is not appreciated. In fact, he’s seen as a detriment or at least a hindrance everywhere he goes.

Hiccup doesn’t know where he fits in. He admires his fellow teenagers who get the exciting job of putting out fires while he’s stuck working as a blacksmith’s apprentice. Slaying dragons is everything to Vikings. It’s how they gain status and demonstrate their value to the village.

To prove his worth, Hiccup runs off with a weapon of his own design. His goal is to kill a dragon. But not just any dragon – the one no one has ever even seen and that’s deadlier than anything else they’ve encountered. Imagine that. Achieving that miracle would propel him from lower than dirt to higher than the stratosphere in terms of popularity. What an ambitious young man.

He seems to accomplish his aim when he hits the dragon. However, it turns out that all he did was wound it. When he attempts to finish the job by stabbing the dragon through the heart, he learns that he’s not up to the task. He’s surrounded by dragon slayers, and he can’t be one of them. Or he won’t. Whatever the case, Hiccup has to come to terms with the fact that he’ll never fit in.

Stop Being All of You

People gesture to all of Hiccup, saying that he needs to stop being the way he is. But what they don’t realize is that his ingenuity and creativity are exactly what they need. Fitting in was never in the cards for Hiccup. Instead, he was destined to be a trendsetter. I’m no Hiccup. I lack his engineering talents. So I’m not sure where my place is.

And I’m not saying that we need the whole world to bow to us and change to fit our uniqueness. Hiccup is one in a million. He was able to change the world for the better, even though we find out in the sequels that dragons and humans coexisting is more of a temporary situation than a permanent solution.

It makes me wonder if I’m going to be part of the new world being built or if I’m forever shut out of it. I’ve been looking for a job as a writer for the past eight months. Although I’ve come close a few times to landing a job, I haven’t been able to seal the deal. When I come across a challenge, I always try to figure out what to change in myself to overcome it. However, this feels like I’m being asked to be a completely different man in order to succeed.

Standing Out

I’m an oddball. At my last job, I wanted to fit in. Instead, I stood out in a lot of ways. I wasn’t interested in talking sports or gadgets or vehicles. My love has always been movies and books and much less exciting things. One good thing I was able to do was to share jokes I came up with at meetings. Now that I’m on the hunt for a job, I’ve recognized that that’s not a skill employers are looking for.

I don’t seem to come across as anything special on paper. Hiccup was not worthy of anyone’s attention either before he started winning people over. He seemed to speak their language by taking down dragons. But he tended to kill them with kindness, finding things dragons loved and using them to make them do what he wanted.

How do I do that? The only advice I seem to get is to stop being all of me. Be exactly what the ATS wants. Be memorable and quick-witted, but don’t be funny. Be articulate, and lose the stutter. I’m like an old building in a village full of new ones that have been rebuilt time and time again. Not an impressive structure, just overlooked.

A Little More of This

It’s the height of irony that Hiccup thinks he can’t slay a dragon after he fails to kill a wounded Toothless, but he winds up slaying the Green Death with Toothless and gets wounded himself. He saved his whole village and ushered in a new age for them in one fell swoop. There was a terrible price to pay, but he became the most popular Viking in town as a result of his heroism.

His father Stoick sums it up perfectly when he says, “All we needed was a little more of this,” gesturing to all of Hiccup.

Wherever I work next, I want to share what I have to offer with them. I know they’ll have to look past my not-very-Viking-like exterior to see me as worth bringing on, but I trust that once they do, I’ll be able to slay whatever dragon they’re up against. No matter the cost.

This is the Deja Reviewer bidding you farewell until we meet again.

All images are the copyright of their owner.

Want to Support the Deja Reviewer?

If you’d like to support the Deja Reviewer, please consider donating a few dollars to keep this site going strong. I’ll even send you an original joke if you do! Try it, and prepare to enjoy a good chuckle.

$5.00