Back on Your Feet

 Under a deadly onslaught of enemy fire, the infantry platoon inched forward toward their objective. One soldier screamed, “I’m hit! Oh my G-d, look at my arm!” A bullet had fractured his right elbow. He was bleeding badly and the pain was excruciating. He dropped his rifle to the ground, and his good left arm embraced his right elbow. Close to panic, he continued screaming, “My arm! My arm! Someone help me!” His buddies in the meanwhile were pinned down, trying to return fire and stay alive. The wounded soldier was no longer shooting back. He was vulnerable. Before long, a second bullet struck him – in the head.

One of the other soldiers in the platoon was also badly wounded in the right arm, but no one knew. A nasty enemy bullet tore his entire bicep open like a grapefruit;  he felt like like daggers of fire were stabbing him over and over in the arm. Never had he experienced such torturous pain in his life. But he grit his teeth and didn’t say a word. With his good left hand, he slipped another clip into his carbine and kept on shooting. He and his comrades mumbled a silent prayer, and then took the biggest gamble of their lives. With their weapons blazing, they rushed the enemy position and overcame the enemy forces. He lived to tell the story.

Both soldiers in the above incident were severely wounded. But the difference between the dead soldier and the surviving soldier is resilience. One was overwhelmed at his setback whereas the other found a way to bounce back and continue fighting.

* * *

Ron was a photographer for a leading travel magazine. He was climbing in the Austrian Alps on an exquisitely beautiful cloudless summer afternoon. He was excited, for he had captured some of his finest photos that day. Reaching a ledge with a breathtaking panorama, he set up a tripod and began taking photos of the setting sun. Totally engrossed in what he was doing, Ron didn’t feel how rapidly the temperatures were falling. He knew that hundreds of thousands of people would be seeing the internationally-circulated magazine featuring these photos, both on the cover and in the feature article, so nothing else mattered at the moment.

From out of nowhere, the gust of a strong Alpine wind blew across the mountain, spraying wisps of snow and ice, mountaintop remnants from the last snows of spring. Reeling from the gust, Ron’s tripod suddenly stood on one leg – in another split second, his camera with all the day’s photos would be plunging thousands of feet to the canyon below. Ron lunged for the tripod and succeeded to prevent it from falling, but the rock he stepped on in doing so didn’t provide a firm footing. He lost his balance and fell off the ledge. In one moment, he saw his entire life flash before his eyes. Soon, he’d no longer be alive…

Ron’s free-fall was short-lived. Another ledge, seven feet below the ledge he was standing on, protruded enough to catch the photographer and save his life. But with his feet in the air, he landed with a pounding thud on his right side, his ribs and shoulder absorbing the bulk of the blow. The fall was so hard that Ron’s  lungs completely deflated. He grasped for air, but there was none. His ribs screamed in pain – at least two were broken. His shoulder was dislocated. His legs and arms were scraped and bleeding and he had a gash on his forehead. Yet, he was alive. Two problems remained: he still couldn’t breathe and his backpack with cellphone were on the upper ledge. So were the camera and tripod, which he had succeeded is saving from oblivion.

Ron’s initial reaction was despair. “Show’s over!” he thought. “If I don’t choke soon, I’ll freeze. How can I ever make it back up to the upper ledge? I can barely move…”

Then his resolve kicked in. Ron was never a quitter and his tenacity more than compensated for his lack of natural ability in other areas. Determined to beat the odds, But knowing that he couldn’t do it on his own, Ron pleaded in his thoughts, “Dear G-d, I can’t go on much longer without breathing. I need Your help…”

After a seemingly endless period of fifteen or twenty seconds, his lungs somehow inhaled a cold but ever-so-sweet live-giving breath of Alpine air. The temperature was now in the high thirties and all Ron was wearing was a sweatshirt. Soon, it would be pitch black, for the sun had set. This was the last chance to find a way back to the upper ledge, where the lifeline of the backpack and cellphone was. Ron pictured the future magazine cover in his mind’s eye. He wasn’t ready to die on the rocks. With a superhuman effort, he pulled himself up to safety.

Ron’s ribs never healed properly. Neither has his shoulder. But his photos continue to grace the covers of magazines and inspire people. What’s more, he continues to do great things.

* * *

Success doesn’t mean that you never fall; it means that you’re resilient – you make every effort to get back on your feet as quickly as possible after a fall.

People dream of an easy life. In reality, there is no such thing. Anything of worth in life worth requires effort and effort is an upward battle, just like climbing a mountain. The Creator designed the world in such a way that everything of substance falls – that’s the law of gravity. So, in ascending, we must go against the forces of nature, which seldom cooperate, to say the least.

Pondering the concept of gravity could be potentially depressing. True, if all we are is a physical body, then we will be pulled downward.

Fortunately, we are not merely a physical body. Our bodies serve as the housing for our life force, the soul. The soul too functions according to the Creator’s laws of creation, but unlike the body the soul pulls us up. Determination, resilience, tenacity and perseverance – all qualities of champions – come from the soul. So if we want to be champions in whatever we do, we must strengthen our souls and learn to get back on our feet after a fall, for falls are an unavoidable part of life. We don’t want them, but once they’re here, we can take advantage of them in our striving for success.