Are you up for a good, or should I say, great movie?
Well in this post, you’ll find it as I’ll tell you the best film in the world to watch if you are in a hard time in your life.
That movie is the Shawshank Redemption.
You might have heard of this movie before as one of the 10 best movies of all time or one of the best modern films ever or it might be the first time that you’ve heard of the film at all.
Regardless of who you are, this movie will teach you lessons about life that extend well beyond a prison wall and are common traits of today’s champions.
So if you want to be a champion in life, then this movie and post are for you.
Here are some of the lessons from the Shawshank Redemption.
Life Isn’t Fair
You know this one by heart if you’ve ever had any experience in life.
Here’s how it went in the movie.
Right at the start, Andy was convicted of murdering his wife and the person she was cheating with. He got 2 life sentences as a result.
At the beginning of his time in prison, he got the most mundane chores like doing the laundry. As you would imagine, he hated it.
As the years went by, the warden noticed that Andy was extremely intelligent and he offered Andy the job of doing his bookkeeping.
Now here comes the good part.
The warden was up to something that no one was noticing.
He was doing a money laundering scheme.
A money laundering scheme that you wouldn’t even know existed if you looked at him.
If you want to know what it was, read this for more or you can go grab the movie here on Amazon.
Please note: I am an affiliate for Amazon and I will receive a commission off of your purchase if you buy through my link. The price that you pay will not be affected.
It’s pretty crazy that the warden of the prison is the real criminal.
What irony!
Do you know someone like this?
Comment below with your responses. I bet they’re really interesting!
But there’s more.
To hide up the scheme, he would kill inmates who did nothing wrong (aside from their criminal activity outside of prison) and put Andy in solitary confinement every time Andy was ready to expose the scheme.
Talk about a dictator in disguise!
Now here’s what happened at the end.
Well, you’ll have to read the link or watch the movie to find out.
But the reality is that Shawshank clearly depicts that regardless of your circumstance, there will always be an unfair circumstance and you should always be prepared to deal with it at whatever cost.
In short, when life hits you hard, make moves or make excuses.
It’s that simple.
Bad boss = Make the correct move
Bad professor = Make the correct move; I show you how here by the way.
Bad parents = Make the correct move
You get what I mean.
Which brings me to my next point about the movie.
Persist, Persist, Persist
I don’t know if you knew this, but Andy spent 20 years in Shawshank prison before breaking out.
20 years.
That’s a LONG time.
This might be a fictional movie, but I don’t know of anyone who would’ve lasted for 20 years in the hole like that with disgusting circumstances and come out on the other side like a rejuvenated man.
Now here’s the other thing.
In the movie, he breaks out, but he goes through this nasty stench that would make you throw up with just the look of it.
Literally, it’s bravery at its finest.
And that’s what you need to be when you go through something hard in your life.
Just bash it through and keep going even if it seems like there is no return because those tough times cannot last forever friend.
If you have the will for it, you have a way to find it just like Andy.
It’s all a matter of not quitting and seeing it through the end unlike everyone else.
You can read more about that concept here.
Now what inspires someone not to quit?
Goals? Dreams? Aspirations?
Those make up part of it, but it really comes down to this thing here:
Never Give Up Hope
It’s having hope over anything that makes a dream come true, not the dream itself.
It’s about how bad you want it my friend.
Andy wanted out BAD so he never gave up the self-belief that he needed in order to get out alive on the other side.
At certain points in the movie, there were inmates who doubted his ability to escape and told him that his hope is quote “a dangerous thing”.
For many people, any of those statements would’ve made them quit right on the spot.
But not Andy. Andy refused to quit and as a result, he got what he wanted.
Believe me when I say that if Andy gave up hope, he would NEVER have gotten out of Shawshank alive.
Let me ask you something. Have you ever been in a situation where you needed hope in order to get out of a bad situation that might have seemed like it was going to get worse?
Did you have hope or did you not have hope and what was the result?
Comment below with what happened.
The takeaway is that regardless of the situation at hand, you must have hope to survive and you must have hope to thrive.
If you don’t have hope at all, you will always lose.
Read that again please.
No way around it.
Now let me ask you this question:
Do you want to live the way that you don’t want to live?
I don’t think so.
So if you don’t watch the movie, take this post as a lesson that you MUST have hope.
If you don’t have hope, watch your dreams die.
Believe me when I say that you will cry in shame somehow if you gave up.
Don’t give up.
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Get busy living or get busy dying.
Until next time,
This is Evan signing off.
Evan Cruz
Evan Cruz is the founder of Join the Island, the website committed to helping young adults become massively productive and reach their full potential.
He has been featured on Vox, OnlineU, and UpJourney. He has also a cited human relations expert and college expert.
He graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Civil Engineering.
Read more about Evan and Join the Island here.