My Dad, Kylee and her husband Michael and I went to listen to Aron Ralston speak.
(With no water and little hope of survival, Aspen mountaineer Aron Ralston, 27, used a pocketknife to amputate his own arm and free himself from a boulder weighing 800-1,000 pounds that fell and trapped him for five days in a remote desert canyon in eastern Utah.)
It was very inspiring and moving. The depth of the human spirit is remarkable. Here are some things he said about his experience.
"I was at the point where I knew I was going to die there in the canyon. In order to have any kind of a future, really what was indeed a desperate act was a rebirth and it gave me my life back," said Ralston.
"It gives me a confidence, an awareness of potential and an understanding of my own values that I didn't have before. Those are kind of the gifts of adversity - for me that's what came out of this and adversity can contribute to others. It may not be a boulder - it might be any number of a thousand other things that people deal with," said Ralston.
Looking back on that spring day in 2003, Ralston says the agonizing process that set him free has taught him the value of relationships. And life. Things he wants to share.
"It's not enough just to survive. There's a mandate to flourish with a gift that you're given - about making a choice. It could have been the worst thing that ever happened to me and yet I made it a choice to make it the best thing that ever happened to me," said Ralston.
He said that the decisions he made leading up to being trapped under the rock were decisions that he takes responsibility for. He was hiking alone, had little water, and NO ONE knew where he was. He talked about how when he was trapped that he had a turning point.
After the desperation and realization that he was trapped and would most likely die stuck in this situation he became depressed and thought a lot about ending his life early. Then came his choice to stay committed. To live his life to the end. To not give up no matter what that meant. He said that hope changed his outlook on the situation. It didnt free his hand but it freed his mind. When he talked about what it was like to be trapped for six days under the rock without water, the look on his face as he told his story you knew that it was a horrifying and incredible event that no one should ever go through.
His story impacted me. I felt that I go through times in my own life when I feel trapped. And that dispite the decisions I may have made to put me there it is up to me to let go of trying to control things that are out of my power, stay committed to being the person I know I am and to serve others.
