Hero? Or zero?

We all have our heroes. 

When we are very young, our parents are our heroes.Then we grow a little, enter the playground of our peers, and find other heroic figures from popular culture.

Perhaps a little further down the track, we find our heroes on the landscapes that interest us … sport, art, industry, etc. This is the dangerous stage … because our tendency is to remain over-focussed on the trait we admire about our ‘hero’ to the exclusion of the what they are really like as human beings. 

Most of the real heroes - the ones that are easily overlooked - are at work in the community, they walk the same streets we do, they are the ‘angels in disguise’ - if you can accept the expression. 

You won’t find the real heroes in the spotlight or on the movie screen … the actual heroes are ordinary people, making the lives of others a little easier, a little more joyful, a little more interesting.

There is some truth to the old adage - ‘you never want to meet your heroes’. I feel this adage refers to the heroes of celebrity and pop culture - the real ones, are most certainly worth meeting, knowing and spending time with.