Be a Hero

There are many words in the English language that have partially lost their meaning as a result of colloquial overuse (like, literally, love, etc). One of those words is "hero." We say things like "X is my hero" when X is a person that is famous for being rich or funny or fun to be around. It's not bad to be any of those things but does that really constitute heroism?

If we try to think about how to properly define the modern hero, we should come up with a common attribute that is shared among people that anyone would consider a "real hero" like a firefighter who risks himself to save others, a father who invests his whole self in supporting his family, or even Christ Himself who sacrificed everything for the sake of Love. The common denominator, the DNA of heroism, is self sacrifice for the sake of someone or something else. 

This element of self denial is crucial because if someone makes a sacrifice for his own sake, it is not really a sacrifice but an investment or calculated risk. This is all fine and good if we are talking about success, but once again, I think we need to make a real distinction between success and heroism - only then can we ask ourselves which one we should really admire. If we aspire to have a world that is filled with successful people, then we would expect everyone to be above average. This the world of inflated grades, participation trophies and entitlement in the workplace. If we are tired of this world, we can only escape it by aspiring to have a world that is filled with heroes, so that we may expect everyone not to care where they are in the bell curve but rather care how much they sacrifice of themselves for others. 

This is a new world that admires St. Therese of Lisieux, the little flower of Jesus, not because she "did anything special" but simply because she exchanged love with God and others without expecting that to be a currency for self aggrandizement. We have much to learn from this idea of loving and giving up of ourselves without expecting that this will in some way increase our stature. It is a soft deception to love with expectation. 

Again I write here to myself. Again I write hoping someone will read this and see me one day in my hypocrisy and say "didn't you write about this and say not to do that?" May God help us all to repent from our selfish ways. May He help us to see others ahead of ourselves. May He help us to be heroes like Him who first loved us.