Without The Rope

My friends finally succeeded in getting me to watch The Dark Knight Rises.  It isn't like I've been avoiding watching it, life has just been busy and it wasn't a top priority.  However, since I will soon leave for my summer internship, we made a point of scheduling it in tonight and I didn't let anything else get in the way.  I'm glad I watched it, I enjoyed it more than The Dark Knight and totally called the ending! But this isn't meant to be a movie critic, rather the sharing of a life lesson rediscovered as I watched.  If you haven't seen it yet- let Reggie know and he will make you see it... oh- and spoiler alert.

After being defeated by Bane, Wayne is thrown into a prison built in a pit deep in the ground.  He, as well as many of the other prisoners, attempt to climb out of the pit along the concrete walls, a rope around their chest to catch them when they fail.  No prisoner has ever made it.  The only one to have succeeded was a child, born and raised in the pit. After several failed attempts, a prisoner explains to Wayne the reason for his failure- he does not fear death enough.  Only the fear of dying will give him enough strength to get out.  When Wayne asks how to make the climb, the response is, "As the child did.  Without the rope.  Then fear will find you again."  Climbing again, this time without the rope and far more intense background music, Wayne succeeds in escaping the pit and returns to save the day as Batman!

On to the life lesson!  It comes from an interesting combination of fear and hope.  I fear pain, rejection, disappointment- the results of "falling."  Yet I hope for joy, acceptance, and delight and because of this hope, I am willing to climb.  I know when I climb that I might fall, but I also know that I might fly.  If I lose hope then I will not climb.  If I have no fear then I will not take the climb seriously and will be more likely to fall. 

For example- the entire month of January was dedicated to filling out applications for REUs (Research Experience for Undergraduates) at several National Observatories.  I was ecstatic with the hope of earning one of these positions, but I also feared not getting the opportunity.  It was not a debilitating fear, I still had faith that whatever happened, it was meant to be, the fear did not prevent me from acting.  The fear pushed me to do my absolute best on those applications.  I'm pretty sure I drove roommates and friends nuts with asking them to read through dozens of revisions of the application essay.  I finally jumped- I turned in the application and waited for a month to learn if I was falling or flying.  As mentioned above, I leave soon for a job I'm beyond excited for.  If I had not feared being turned away, would my application have been nearly good enough to be considered?  

But this isn't the only application.  Each class I take is a chance to climb.  Every friendship formed is a leap of faith that these people will still like me when they realize I'm crazy.  We say we "fall in love" and it's so true.  We fall, afraid they might not love us back, afraid they might not even realize, afraid they might not care; but we jumped anyways, hoping...

Why do we do it?  According to Hitch- "Because that's what people do, they leap and hope... they can fly! Because otherwise we just drop like a rock, wondering the whole way down, "why...did I jump?" But here I am... falling. And there's only one person that makes me feel like I can fly. That's you."

So climb, jump, go...without the rope.  Because only then will the fear be great enough to make you fly.  Only then do you feel the risk is worth it.