Rocky and The Belief in Redemption

“Every Champion was once a Contender who refused to give up.”

~ Sylvester Stallone

Do you believe in overnight success stories? Do you revel in the wunderkinds and the phenom athletes of professional sports? Our society would like it non the better if only the strong won every battle. The pretty and handsome, the shiny, they are the kings and queens of today’s modern world. 1,000,000 subscribers to the beautiful young person showing the frivolous and shallow activities to the simple and dull amazement of the masses. These flash-in-the-pans will quit as soon as it gets just a little bit hard. However, have you truly watched the movie Rocky?

I am not talking about the Rocky sequels, I am talking about the first Rocky, the movie that was written by a struggling actor with not enough money to feed his dog. He was up against it and was told over and over to quit. At the time he wrote the script his car died and he had only a little more than 100 dollars in the bank. If someone was to bet on the success of this actor, they would call him a one in a million long shot.

Heart, throws the World’s Odds Out the Window

What if that person does not stop? What if that person does it no matter what the outcome? They get up and run on determination alone. There is no limelight, there is nobody boosting their confidence. In the shadow of the shallow is the depth and persistence that is found in the true champions. Because they will go the distance, they will continue through boos and pleas for them to give up, They hear the giggles and the criticisms, “Why don’t they just give up?”

“In the shadow of the shallow is the depth and persistence that is found in the true champions.”

~ Timothy John-Luke Smith

“Recognition” should be the title of “Rocky”

The main characters in this movie are Rocky, Adrian, and Mick. They are in lockstep with what they believed in as younger people. Each of them is either a “has been” or a “never was”. These are flawed people but they are not tragic because something is still carrying the forward. That is called “heart”. Rocky still trains no matter how many times they call him a bum from the crowd. There is nobody in their corner or anyone that is willing to help them believe when they get discouraged. They are self-driven and they make no excuses for how their life turned out before the movie began.

The Tallest Walls will Surely Crumble

It takes but Only one last strike to break the most durable of Walls. If we are to break any walls of unfairness, favoritism, of sexism, or one of the many forms of prejudice, it can only be done with a lifetime of tenacious persistence that comes with “heart”. Adrian, even though everyone called her a loser and a nobody, still Adrian, did not become bitter or hard and saw the best in people. Everyone was afraid of Rocky but she gave him a chance. Mick, kept being a boxing trainer and kept the doors open to his gym for decades after everyone wrote him off as a “has been”.

Rocky, was someone who did not let the world define him. he had weak moments at the beginning of the film when the little girl calls him a”creepo” after he was giving her solid advice. Just before his big break, a chance to fight the champ, Apollo Creed, Rocky came to the gym after his locker was taken from him because Mick thinks him a bum.

It is not Luck that gave Rocky his Shot at the Title

Rocky was there at the gym and that is where the champ’s office found him to offer him the title fight. Luck is nothing if there is no heart behind it. If Rocky listened to the world and thought he could never contend with the flashy and shiny, he just would not be there to receive the call. True champions say yes to the path while the masses bow to the will of the nay-sayers. Heart is there at 5 AM. Heart gets ridiculed and holds steady. The heart is what it takes to get the “Lucky Break”. Any wall will crumble because no stone structure can stand against a heart that won’t back down, and that won’t stop.

Let Us Lift Up and Tenacious and the Determined