Thought Of The Day:

I think we are desperate for heroes. We are desperate to believe that there are people who have the strength of conviction to do and make choices that we are unwilling or unable to make ourselves

– Roxanne Gay, Author

Why do we need heroes?

We have always loved questions for we know that the right questions lead us to the right answers and the right answers lead us to the right choices of our lives. So our first question of the day – Why do we need these heroes? What do they mean to us?

We all need a few ideals to live by, a few rules and standards which make us aspire for more and bring out the best in us. And I guess that is why we all need these heroes in life, to keep telling us constantly that there is a standard we can all aspire to and an example we can live up to and perhaps bring our lives to a similar levels of the heroes.

Having a hero is great!

Yes of course! Having a hero is fantastic. There are people out there who have done some amazing stuff, who have constantly inspired us to go beyond our limitations. May it be Stephen Hawking or the Gandhi of the previous era. May it be Oprah or Lincoln, they have all motivated us to stand up for what we believe in and I think it is a wonderful thing to do so.

Having a perfect hero is horrible!

If you recall the famous phrase – the fault in our stars. We sometimes tend to expect such a perfection from our heroes that it becomes almost impossible for them to live by those rules. Somewhere we need to tell ourselves that these heroes can be wrong and it is ok to make those mistakes. We need to give our role models a leeway. The reason might be pretty simple – we all need a simple solution to all our problems. And having a single hero for everything solves that. I have seen people blaming Gandhi that he did not give enough time to his family.

I understand the reason why they say so, but Gandhi was never a role model for family life, he stood up for different values. You can’t judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree. Gandhi became our hero for a particular reason and that is that of that! Anything else we say to that is simply making a fool of ourselves.

We need multiple heroes.

Don’t you think so? I mean, if your aspiration is sports Lincoln can be your hero for certain aspects. We as human beings are not at all limited. We have so many facets to us. And a hero need not be mutually exclusive. We have all these different aspects of life and we can aspire for greatness in each one of them and I think it is very noble to do that!

The more we limit ourselves and our capacities comparing it to someone else, the more we push ourselves down. Our heroes are in our lives to take us to the new levels and lead us to an exciting life. You and I cannot use these leaders as excuses. Their lives is totally different from ours. They are not gifted, they have similar and sometimes dissimilar challenges and we all are trying to fight our own little battles in life.

So, cut the heroes a little slack. Let them be wrong! It makes them more human. You take up the role of a better man or woman and you lead the way – not because your hero can’t but because you are simply so much more than that!

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