Persona 3 is a game I hold near and dear to my heart. When I replayed this game last summer I was a total loser, I hated my life and just wanted to give up. The story of Persona 3 is about fighting that feeling, the feeling of just wanting to give in to despair, to fight giving up and staying in bed due to having a lack of motivation to live. Near the end of the game the cast of Persona 3 is thrown into a situation where they have to fight the very embodiment of death and despair. The characters all have a reason to continue to live, to fight against the sometimes overbearing feeling of despair. Akihiko continues onward in order to gain the strength to protect his loved ones, Yukari simply wanted to learn why her father had to die, Ken lived to get revenge on the man who killed his mother. Junpei doesn’t even really know why he fights, he isn’t particularly good at anything and the protagonist is way better than him at the one thing that he is good at. Sometimes it’s okay to not know why you continue onward in life, because just like how Junpei eventually finds a reason to fight so will you. Then there’s Shinji Aragaki, someone who had made a horrible mistake in his past and has lived in guilt ever since, he had given into his despair and decided to stop fighting. He simply just wanted to forget what he did and move on. Of course running away from your mistakes doesn’t solve anything, the only thing that will lead you to is down a path of self hatred. It isn’t until Akihiko convinces Shinji to rejoin SEES that he’s able to continue fighting against his guilt, despair and finally take accountability for his actions that allows him to find peace. The main character lives to spend time with people. Time is limited, you might not be able to spend time with certain people in the future, you might not be as close to certain people as you are now in the future. So don’t waste your time living in self hatred or living as a shut in. Walk away from your soundless room, spend time with the people you care about, and go do things you always wanted to do. Sometimes it might be tedious, sometimes you may want to give up, but refusing to give up and finding the strength to carry forward will make life a lot more fulfilling.