This weekend I watched a movie about someone who needed a great escape plan. Ironically, the movie was titled Escape Plan. Starring in “Escape Plan” were two of my favorite old school action stars, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell you so much about the movie that you no longer have a need or desire to see it. Instead, what I am going to share are three things that stood out to me and how those things are metaphorical warnings for attitudes and behaviors parents must avoid.
Devising the Great Escape Plan Only to Return to Harm’s Way
Ray Breslin played by Sylvester Stallone is a structural engineer whose real vocation is going into prisons to show where prison security systems are weak. Ray doesn’t test the security systems like any ordinary prison consultant might do. Rather, Ray goes undercover as an inmate to point out the weaknesses only after he designs and carries out the great escape plan.
Watching Ray put himself in harm’s way time and again made me think about life as a parent. How often do we put our relationships with our children and family in harm’s way having little regard for the consequences of our behavior? How many times have we behaved like Ray Breslin focusing almost exclusively on things like work – expecting that we will always come up with a great escape plan – a way to repair relationships left in disrepair as a consequence of our flawed thinking and poor decision-making?
So Easily Forgotten
There is a scene very early in the movie that is quite compelling. Ray returns to his office after having been away on a job only to be stopped at the front desk by the receptionist. The receptionist proceeded to ask Ray for identification. Ray was initially stunned but then reality hit him – he had been away for several months.
This scene prompted me to think about how many parents approach the relationship with their children and family this way. More often than we should, we get so caught up doing things that we find more interesting, more important and allegedly more rewarding than being a parent. But the uncomfortable reality is that home and family is really all there is. Like Ray – if we don’t turn our behavior around – we may return to a home where we also will be unrecognized.
And as startling a reality being a stranger in his own office must have been for a fictional character, I’m certain it will be heart wrenching for those of us who may find ourselves outsiders in the presence of those we hoped to not only know but love us. The look on Ray’s face in that scene was incomparable.
The look on Ray’s face should be the computer screen saver and automobile steering wheel emblem for every parent to serve as a vital reminder each day that we take off for work or start working. A reminder that those moments you waste doing something you believe more important and more interesting today – moments when you could be sharing your life with your children – are the very moments that will make it easy for you to be forgotten tomorrow.
Life’s Inescapable Tomb
You can probably tell that the title of the movie foreshadows that at some point Ray will go into a prison that would require the truly great escape plan. Yet without telling you too much more about the movie than I already have, I must share one additional part of the movie that parents would be wise to avoid.
Ray took a job that he knew was far outside of his normal and safe boundaries. Ray took a job out of greed and ego. Ray took a job with little consideration for those who loved and cared for him. Ray took a job in a prison called the “Tomb”.
When Ray accepted the job in the “Tomb”, Ray did what many parents who go off to work do every single day do. We bury ourselves doing things that cause physical stress, mental angst and emotional torment. We entomb ourselves in work – trying to climb the corporate ladder, pursuing titles and public recognition, making more money, buying new stuff…chasing the illusory “American Dream”.
Just like Ray, each day that we partake in this process, we submerge ourselves deeper and deeper in our own personal tomb. And one day, like Ray we may find ourselves – if we aren’t experiencing it already – in the prison that our own words designed and own our thoughts and actions constructed.
The End
I believe the Escape Plan is worth seeing so I’m not going to tell you how the movie ended. I’ve probably told you way too much anyway.
Yet, beyond encouraging you to go see the movie, I would like to leave you with this.
Are you consciously aware of the life you are creating for you and your children? Are you purposely creating a life with your children that is joyful, free and easy or are you constructing an ominous vault that will require the great escape plan?