Intro to The Republic by Plato

So, I am reading The Republic by Plato right now. I have often quoted from this book and have studied it in several of the college classes I have taken, but I have never read the actual text. I just finished the intro by Francis McDonald Corford, and it was eye-opening. There was one quote in particular that was very thought-provoking:

"These words preface an account of the decline of society and of the individual soul, as if it were written in man's fate that every attempt to scale the heavens should be followed by a descent into hell."
Francis McDonald Cornford

I have found this principle to be a universal truth about life...that every high must be followed by a low, that every pinnacle of achievement must be followed by a valley of consequences. The United States is a perfect example: how could any group of men ever outdo or overshadow the founders? There is nowhere to go but down from them. They were the greatest thinkers of the modern age. They devised a nation of people in which all people are created equal with certain inalienable rights while still preserving the Philosopher King mentality of Plato's Republic in the Executive Branch. And if the abovequoted principle holds true, the great pinnacle of their achievements will necessitate the great valley of consequences that we now see playing out in our streets, homes, and schools today (i.e. uneducated children, debt, welfare, etc...). In my own personal life I have seen that every time I achieve something great there is always a time of recovery or reflection or inactivity. The will of man is not an inexhaustible resource that can be summoned on a whim and made use of perpetually, rather the will is a finite store that finds its end quicker than we could image or control.

I remember an analogy that I used to hear at church: Trying to get to heaven through works is like trying to swim the Pacific Ocean, some people might get further than others but no one has ever made it all the way across. In the same vein of thought, no one can actually scale the heavens, so it logically flows, if the above quote holds true, that everyone falls at some point. Our only concern is whether we would like to fall small or fall big, it being the case that the higher we fly the further we have to fall. It would seem that the best course of action would be to rise and fall in steps or stages (i.e. 2 steps forward and 1 step back). If it is inevitable that we should all observe such a see-saw effect in our achievements, then the only thing we can do is maximize the ascent and minimize the fall. It would be important to work this principle into our lives and thoughts or we might be tempted to become discouraged while taking the step back towards hell, never minding that the one step back to hell is the only way to achieve the chronologically next two steps to heaven.