The Most Important Life Lesson From Andy Dufresne and The Shawshank Redemption

The Most Important Life Lesson From Andy Dufresne

and The Shawshank Redemption

Gen Cruz

Stephen King is one of the most prolific novelists of our time. One among his finest works is a novella titled Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption. The movie based on this story titled The Shawshank Redemption ended up as King’s most critically acclaimed film adaptation. It is hailed as the greatest film to never win an Oscar best picture award, and regarded as one of the greatest films in history.

The novella is about a dispassionate big-shot banker serving life imprisonment in Shawshank Penitentiary, and his seemingly miraculous escape.

The Story

Andy Dufresne was judged guilty for the murder of his wife and her lover, a crime that at first seemed to the reader a cut and dry case. However, Andy was explicitly revealed to be innocent later on.

Despite of this, Andy retained his stoic demeanor. He was angry for his predicament sure, but his feelings dictated neither his actions nor his attitude during his entire stay at the prison. Andy kept his mind occupied and looked for things he can do while he was inside. He read books and played chess and kept a routine going. At one point, in trying to sculpt chess pieces from rocks, he discovered the softness of cement used on the cell walls. That’s how he came up of a plan to escape.

If in case you haven’t watched the movie or read the book and I gave the impression Andy Dufresne escaped serving only a few days off his term, well, he didn’t. He was in Shawshank for almost two decades and he carved his cell wall every night for just as long.

“Get busy livin’ or get busy dyin’. That’s goddamn right.”

Are You A Prisoner?

We are all prisoners of our own realities. In today’s world, it’s not uncommon to know, or to meet, or to see someone who feels like he is a prisoner of his own life. A person who feels like he is trapped in his own circumstance. A person who is constantly bickering about the scarcity of opportunities available to him, the lack of freedom he has in his job or his relationships, or how little time he or she has to live life.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. We can easily live our lives inside a safe, familiar, and comfortable box and be content with it. However, we are rarely content. Unlike Andy, most of us will not be able to keep our head as cool as he did, for as long as he did if we feel we are constantly boxed in. We want more, we want something different and new, we want to be free to choose what we want, and we want it now.

When this prisoner mentality is coupled with the belief that we deserve more than what we currently have, it becomes problematic. It is the reason of our dissatisfaction. It leaves us displeased and miserable. It leaves us hopeless that no judge or jury is going to reverse their decision to lock us up. It leaves us hopeless that no one’s going to give us parole for good behavior no matter how long.

But in our case, it’s the truth. No one will. If we are ever going out of this prison we ourselves made up, we have to find our own way out too.

Then Start Carving Your Way Out

Andy Dufresne carved a tunnel through a wall 10 feet thick, inch by inch over the course of 17 years. It took him this long because of one reason only. Digging a tunnel the length of two grown men in one go will result in a pile of rocks and dusts in his cell and will obviously alert the guards. So, he had to noiselessly carve minimal amounts of cement every night when every inmate and guard was asleep. And then, he had to hide the handful of rocks and dust he collected in his pockets and disperse them in the prison field every morning when no one was looking.

(Just in case you’re thinking how he hid the hole in his wall, he covered it with a Rita Hayworth poster, hence the title.)

He did this every single day until the tunnel pierced through the other side. It took him 17 years, and still, it wasn’t the end of it. Freedom wasn’t on the other side, at least not yet. What’s on the other side was the trail of a 500 yard long sewage pipe where all the urine, feces, and every kind of human waste from Shawshank goes to be flushed into a nearby river. And yes, Andy Dufresne crawled through all of that shit to get out.

Whatever it is that makes us feel trapped right now, no one’s going to let us out but ourselves. We have to start digging, carving, clawing our own way through the walls that surround us, that lock us from the freedom that we long for. It’s not going to be easy, and it’s not going to be quick. But sometimes, that’s just how it has to be. Making a break for freedom when unprepared will only leave you at a huge risk of getting swept back to where you started. Or worse, you may end up in a tighter cell with thicker walls.

“Some birds aren’t meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright.”

In The End…

If you are contemplating of leaving your day job to start your journey to entrepreneurship before you even have your first sale, don’t. If you are planning on travelling the world long-term on your backpack before you have enough financial and emotional means to go, don’t. If you are aspiring to make your art as your exclusive and full-time gig before you have an audience, don’t. Piercing the wall cannot and will not happen overnight.

We have to work for it when everyone else is already asleep or is still sleeping. We have to work for it while no one is looking not because we don’t want to get caught, but because we don’t want to be bothered mastering our craft, honing our skills, or polishing our product.

We have to be able to do those things without complaints and still expect that the worst is yet to come. We have to expect that even after all those years of digging, after all our hard work, there may still be a shit pipe waiting on the other side. Lastly, we have to be prepared to make that final crawl.