Strands of Rope

I heard an analogy a few years ago to think about our beings as a rope. It was from Jordan Peterson, but I can't find a clip of it. This idea was dormant until a couple weeks ago when I came across a talk from Dr. Becky Kennedy that brought the rope idea back to the forefront of my mind. In the talk, Dr. Kennedy talks about repairing relationships. Ever since, I've been mulling on the rope analogy. This is my attempt to sort how our beings could be imagined as a rope. 

Your Being as a Rope

Imagine a rope infinitely long in either direction. This represents your being before birth, during life, and after death. My rope is different than your rope. Our creator, and the people that came before us made it this way.

Our being's objective is to build the strongest rope. (hint: we can use each other's ropes)

What makes a rope weak? Nicks and knots. What makes a rope strong? Tight braiding with other ropes and a thicker, flexible rope.
So, we must avoid creating nicks and knots and braid our ropes together to build the strongest rope. In addition, we must increase the strength of our strand of rope.

Nicks and Knots

Knots can be thought of as little acts of deception, or white lies. They start to twist the rope, which could lead to knotting.
Nicks are more severe. Nicks actually sever your rope and even surrounding ropes. Consider being in a marriage with your rope being tightly bound with your spouse. Then, wham, an affair occurs and severs not just your rope but surrounding ropes. If a person doesn't have enough strands attached, this can completely sever someone's rope. Not good.
It's harder to repair nicks compared to knots.

Already, my mind starts to race visualizing this in action. Let's say I've done a great job building a strong rope. Objective complete. But life happens, and I tell a little white lie. Uh oh, the rope starts twisting. This pulls on the fibers of the ropes braided with mine. Fortunately, my rope is bound with some pretty strong ropes making it difficult to twist. My wife, family, or peer group 'sets me straight...' literally. Knot averted.

Weave your rope

Let's shift gears to focusing on strengthening our rope. An easy way to strengthen your rope is to braid or twist it around a stronger rope. Better yet, intertwine your rope with multiple stronger ropes. In other words, surround yourself with people that have strong ropes. I don't have to give examples. We know this intuitively. Bring five people to mind and rank their ropes. I bet you can do it. Another thing to consider -- tighter braid, stronger rope. Woven relationships lead to a stronger weave. Be careful though. If a nick occurs, a rope tightly woven to yours has a higher likelihood of getting nicked.

Dimensions of the rope

How about a question that may have popped into your mind -- are the dimensions of my rope fixed? No, the size of our rope can change. The flexibility of our rope can change. Our ropes flexibility is proportionate to our curiosity. Higher curiosity leads to increased flexibility. The more knowledge and experience we gain, the more our rope grows in diameter. Why does this matter? People have the same objective, have the strongest rope. Naturally, people are going to seek out strong, flexible ropes. There comes a point where we begin attracting other strands. In short, become the rope other people want to weave into theirs.

Tie it all together

Every person's existence can be thought of as a rope. In the end, we want to build a rope where everyone's strands are tightly woven, large and flexible, without any nicks or knots. Pause and really think about this. What does our rope look like now... Imagine a perfect rope...

Remember,
Nicks and Knots are bad. Don't deceive or speak negatively of yourself or others.
Braiding and thickening is good (while remaining flexible). Repair and grow yourself and others by doing good.

Let's build the biggest, strongest rope.