Throughout the ages, it has been said by so many wise sages in so many ways that heroes are made by the paths they choose, not the powers they are graced with. Despite that, too many still think of heroes as rare superhuman beings with unmatchable strength and unwavering fortitude. While that certainly can be true, in reality there are opportunities presented everyday wherein we all can perform heroic acts without fanfare or spotlight, and certainly without exceptional powers. It does take courage. It does involve empathy and compassion. It typically evokes some risk to yourself. However, heroic behavior can spring from even the smallest of us engaging in, seemingly, the smallest of circumstances.
The following story taken from the book Voices of Virtue authored by Randy Traeger well illustrates what I mean:
Come with me to a third grade classroom, where a nine-year-old boy is sitting at his desk. All of a sudden, there is a puddle between his feet, and the front of his pants are wet. He thinks his heart is going to stop because he cannot possibly imagine how this has happened. It’s never happened before, and he knows that when the other boys find out he will never hear the end of it. When the girls find out, they’ll never speak to him again as long as he lives.
The boy believes his heart is going to stop. He puts his head down and prays this prayer: “Dear God, this is an emergency! I need your help now! Five minutes from now I’m dead meat.”
He looks up from his prayer and here comes the teacher with a look in her eyes that says he has been discovered.
As the teacher is walking toward him, a classmate named Susie is carrying a goldfish bowl filled with water. Susie trips in front of the teacher and inexplicably dumps the bowl of water in the boy’s lap.
The boy pretends to be angry, but all the while is saying to himself, “Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord!
Now all of a sudden, instead of being the object of ridicule, the boy is the subject of sympathy. The teacher rushes him downstairs and gives him gym shorts to put on while his pants dry out. All the other children are on their hands and knees cleaning up around his desk. The sympathy is wonderful, but as life would have it, the ridicule that should have been his has now been transferred to someone else—Susie.
She tries to help, but the other students all tell her to get out of the way. “You’ve done enough already, you klutz!”
Finally, at the end of the day, as they are waiting for their bus, the boy walks over to Susie and whispers, “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”
Susie smiles at him and whispers back, “I wet my pants once too.”
“Every society needs heroes. And every society has them. The reason we don’t often see them is because we don’t bother to look.
There are two kinds of heroes. Heroes who shine in the face of great adversity, who perform an amazing feat in a difficult situation. And heroes who live among us, who do their work unceremoniously, unnoticed by many of us, but who make a difference in the lives of others.
Heroes are selfless people who perform extraordinary acts. The mark of heroes is not necessarily the result of their action, but what they are willing to do for others and for their chosen cause. Even if they fail, their determination lives on for others to follow. The glory lies not in the achievement, but in the sacrifice.” ? Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
Have an AWE-full Weekend!
William J. “Bill” Bacqué