I think we all want to be heroes.
To someone at least.
I believe it is a fundamental, anthropological requirement that we gain the recognition for leading someone somewhere in our lives.
I think this is why some people volunteer and others flog themselves to death for work while others still participate in crazy, sporting pursuits which they have no business being involved in.
I think the problem that we are creating and no seeing the results of though, is that the people we hold up to our kids as heroes or who we allow them to hold up themselves are breaking the ‘hero contract’.
To my mind heroes gained privilege as a result of the responsibility they took for the position that they held and the work that was required to get there.
I have no difficulty with Andy Murray being wealthy because I think that he has sacrificed his entire life in such a focused fashion to get as far up the top of the ladder of his chosen pursuit as possible and he spends his fame wisely.
The same however is not true of others I see children idolizing.
Heroes, I believe, show bravery and I believe bravery is a choice in a situation where you could go left or could go right. It doesn’t have to be in war or situations of danger but it must be a redoubtable commitment to improvement that in some way leads to benefits to society around you. That can be through sport, care or any form of service to society.
One of the problems is perhaps that we have substituted the accumulation of wealth with heroism – we celebrate the Warren Buffet’s and the Richard Branson’s as heroes yet there is much less recognition in society for nurses or midwives or teachers. We allow the Government to fight with Junior Doctors and to pretend that they are money grabbing anarchists while we protect entirely the bankers who almost caused the collapse of society through their unmitigated greed and disproportionate rewards.
I watched the Simon Sinek video yesterday, where he analyses the election of Donald Trump. We get the politicians we deserve. Isn’t it time that we looked at our politicians and realised that they are a reflection on society – a mirror image looking back at them, something created by us.
It’s time the we re-defined what heroes are. If not for us, at least for the benefit of the generations to come next.
Blog Post Number - 1223