One of the most exciting moments of your life is about to happen. Your bid card is laying there on the table, two of the brothers you most connected with during rush are standing in front of you, and your ticket to an almost unfathomable collegiate life can be sealed with your signature.
Of course, you never thought that in-depth about it when the time came; you were simply trying not to piss your pants in a strange emotion that is the result of absurd joy and unprecedented nerves as you struggled to seal your future with your perspective fraternity. You really don’t remember the slim amount of time between actually signing your bid card and one of the most important parties of your life. Never have you felt like such a part of a group of guys, even though you barely know your pledge brothers' names and have not even the slightest clue when your fraternity was founded. Champagne bottles were popped, beer was chugged, various chants echoed the walls of the party room, and beautiful girls lined every inch of the basement. You were on cloud nine.
Fast forward to the next day. It’s 10 p.m., you’re dressed in a coat and tie, and you have your first pledge meeting. All of your pledge brothers meet up to come into the house in unison just as you were instructed. You slowly open the door not knowing what lies behind them even though you were there the night before. You see but one brother sitting solemnly at the end of the trashed room and you proceed as you would during a funeral, slow and somber. You sit down, patiently awaiting those first words, noticing all of the debris from last night and countless other pieces of garbage that don’t seem to ring a bell. “You have five minutes to make this place spotless. Your time starts now.” Suddenly you come to the realization that you have crossed the drastic bridge between rushee and pledge.
Every day from this point forward, you will fight back constant urges to drop and quit the initiation process because what you thought you wanted just seems too hard to obtain. You will question why the tone of active members so suddenly changed from extremely friendly to grave within a matter of hours. You share the same thoughts and questions as every single person who receives a rare and real pledgeship now-a-days.
In light of this situation, I would like you all, both prospective pledges and active members, to acknowledge the fact that there is no such thing as a free lunch, that everything truly worth having requires an extensive amount of work and suffering, and that for every glorious mountain top, there is a massive climb ahead of you. Take time to reflect daily on how sacred the process you are partaking in really is. Other than the likes of the military, the fraternity is one of the last standing establishments that gives you the opportunity to truly work for your place in an organization. Proving yourself worthy to your active members, your pledge brothers, your family and, most of all, yourself. Yes, pledgeship will be hard and it will entail anything from countless hours making sure your house is spotless to menial tasks asked of you that make no sense at all. But I would like to ask you one thing: Would you work almost every hour of the day getting only the necessary amount of sleep to survive for seven years so that you could live carefree for 70 years? Chances are, if you are truly cut of the same material I am, this is no question at all, and the answer is clear. Now apply this same mentality to joining a fraternity. Does it not make sense to bust your balls for a semester so that you have at the very least three and a half years to live the glorious life that is being an active member?
There will be points throughout this semester when you are near your mental breaking point, when you feel completely lost, but that is what is needed to make sure that you are man enough to join the ranks of fraternity men who have been monetarily and spiritually affluent for over 200 years. Do not flee from such challenges; embrace them wholeheartedly and step up as a leader in your time of despair. As a leader, you will be forced to face more trouble than that of the average sheep in your pledge class, but it proves to be more than worth it as you gain the utmost respect from your brothers and alumni alike. Do not fear the initiation process, but rather, respect it as you will envy pledge classes to come because those moments made up some of the best times of your life.
Over the course of the dynasty that we call fraternity life, we have seen a gradual surge of sensitivity toward the initiation process, and it does not make sense to me. How can someone gain the respect of others in any part of this world by simply signing a piece of paper? How does the superficial rush process make sure that a young man is willing to take on the responsibilities set forth by countless generations before him? The only way we are able to do so is by continuing the process that has been around so long that it is called tradition. This idea of tradition embodies the idea of taking iron ore and forging it by fire to make flawless steel, taking out the impurities and adding essential elements to make this formidable boy into a respected man.
When those moments of weakness awaken inside of you, speak to your pledge brothers, your active members and, most of all, your father. They will be able to empathize with you and encourage you in a way that is totally foreign to you; they will encourage you every step of the way because, even if you have lost sight of the end game, they have not.
You may have thought you received a free lunch when you rushed your fraternity, but pledgeship is where you truly pay it back. Dig in and work hard with a smile on your face because, in every dark cloud, there is a silver lining.
