127 Hours - The Overcomer

So i finally just watched the movie 127 hours.  For those unfamiliar, it's a true story about a dude (played by James Franco) who falls into a ravine, gets stuck under a boulder, and (spoiler alert) needs to cut off his arm in order to escape...  it made me pretty emotional so i wanted to make a few comments on it... deconstruct it a little... people love an overcomer.  We love to see people beat the odds, beat circumstance, bluff their way through a bad hand dealt... that's why the world still has at the very least an 'appreciation' for characters like Jesus, or Ghandi, or Martin Luther King... overcoming is the stuff of happiness, engrained in us all... what is hope if it's not the hope to overcome something.... poverty, disease, pain, life itself... we want, need, live to overcome.  That's why we get emotional i guess... it's the inspiration to go on, and not just to go on but to try harder, to press ahead, to persevere.  Makes me think about my weekly battle to do something as simple as hitting the gym... how small the trial of pushing myself to 20 minutes on the treadmill is compared to what james franco's character was going through... life is all about the desire (or lack thereof) to live it... the problem is, we often don't have the motivation to move until it's too late... retroactive motivation never works... deathbed regret is probably the saddest thing we as humanity know.

I guess the application here is pretty simple. don't live numb to the life that surrounds you. enjoy it. laugh through it. overcome.  - Tim.