100-2 英文心得徵文比賽第一名：企管四A 林○昇 127 Hours

Imagine that you were trapped down in a 150-yard canyon alone with two burritos, less than a liter of water, a cheap imitation of a Leatherman brand multi-tool, a small first aid kit, a video camera, a digital camera and rock climbing gear, and an 800-pound boulder crushed on your hand. Aron Lee Ralston, a graduate from Cherry Creek High School in Greenwood Village, Colorado and a mechanical engineering and French student at Carnegie Mellon University. At Carnegie Mellon, he served as a Resident Assistant, studied abroad, and was an active intramural sports participant. He left his job as a mechanical engineer with Intel in 2002 to climb all of Colorado's "fourteeners", or peaks over 14,000 feet high during the winter season. In April 2003, Ralston entered Utah's Bluejohn Canyon only to become trapped when an 800-pound boulder shifted, crushed his hand, and pinned him to the canyon wall. For six days, Ralston struggled to free himself while warding off dehydration and hypothermia. Trapped and facing certain death, Ralston chose a final option that later made him an international sensation: Using a multi-tool, the climber amputated his right arm, and then rappelled to freedom. Very few of us will ever have to make the difficult choices Aron Ralston faced. Even fewer of us will experience being trapped underneath a boulder and be forced to serve our own limb over freedom. It is not difficult to believe that Aron Ralston could be any one of us. When his arm got stuck “between a rock and a hard place” (the title of his book and possibly the first time that expression was meant literally), he tried, in vain, to free himself. After a few days of fruitless effort, Aron’s situation only grew more desperate. He began to reflect, “What a big hero! Coming out here without telling anyone where I was going... Mistake! As the ordeal continued, Ralston began to get delirious. Death seemed to hover him. In a true act of desperation, he took a knife, already dulled from repeated banging on the rock, and cut off his arm. Keep in mind that he still needed to scale down the mountain and hike an additional 16 miles. But as he walked away from the scene, he looked back at Blue John and said, “Thank you.” We are given no further explanation but since the mountain released him when his life was endangered, rather than taking it, we must assume he means “thank you for the experience, for the wisdom gained, the lesson proffered." When we are in the midst of trials and tribulations, we are mostly in survival mode, just putting one foot in front of the other and trying to make it through. But when they are over, if we can find a quiet moment, if we can reflect, perhaps we can discover there was something to learn. There is some way to deepen our understanding of ourselves and our potential. As long as we remain alert and receptive, we may be able to overcome and have a chance for reflection. Aron Ralston endured an ordeal that seems incomprehensible to most of us. It took tremendous courage and determination and strength of will to escape the mountain trap. And given his weakened state, even after all that, his survival was nothing short of miraculous. What a tragedy it would have been if the entire trauma had been for naught. But Aron Ralston is a fortunate young man – not just because he survived, but because he recognized the lessons available for him to learn from this experience while he still had the time and ability to change. Although he continues to climb mountains, he also works as a motivational speaker, doing the best possible thing with such dearly-earned wisdom – sharing it with others. Married with a child, he no longer avoids solitude and he never goes mountain climbing without telling someone where he is going. I don’t know how he survived those 127 hours (the 2 hours spend watching the movie were enough of a harrowing ordeal for me) but that really taught me a great lesson as his determination and courage cheated an opportunity for the Grim Reaper. I have grown, even if it’s something so simple as carrying a better blade while canyoneering, from Aron’s experiences. And I hope his wisdom will help you overcome your own mountain, great or small.