He Ever Regards Others What is a hero? Is it someone that “saves the day and gets the girl?” This used to be my definition of a hero until I grew up and really learned what a hero is. The dictionary says a hero is “a man of great strength and courage, favored by the gods and in part descended from them, often regarded as a half-god and worshiped after his death.” Through society though we are disillusioned to the identity of real hero’s and instead praise celebrities as such. Over time though I gained knowledge and personal insight of what a real hero is. A real hero is a person who is strong and just and stands up for what is right instead of what is popular. But each individuals definition of a hero is different and everyone, in a sense, could be someone else’s hero if they had the chance. “The hero used to be the one in white.
Now he is harder to spot.” Heroes are everywhere; it just takes a closer inspection to notice. Whether it be the mailman who is courteous to you when he brings you your mail, or a total stranger who risked his or her life to help you. There’s a story of a widowed woman with two young boys. It is one of the boys birthdays and she doesn’t have much money for anything. Then one day she goes to her desk and there is an envelope stuck between her son’s pictures and inside was a gift certificate for $50. 00 to a restaurant for her boys.
The woman now had enough money to get a present and take her boy out to eat for his birthday and she will never forget this kind gesture from an anonymous hero in her eyes. A hero doesn’t have to be the strongest person in the world or the most popular, but they do need to have a love for their fellow man or woman and an affinity towards other people’s feelings. Someone who makes you feel better even when they are down in life. But, with societal changes people are regarding heroes as top figures in Hollywood and people who make there millions by putting on a mask of false pretenses. When is the last time you ” ve seen a celebrity drive around in a car that costs less than $100, 000? Why do people revere these people so much? Is it because they ” ve acted in an action movie where they got the bad guy and saved the world? We are so caught up in media that it almost seems like people can’t tell the difference between movies and real life sometimes. There may not be people out there blowing up buildings left and right to save a cat, but there are real people, real heroes out there, making this world a better place to live in for everybody.
“The hero was distinguished by his achievement; the celebrity by his image or trademark. The hero created himself; the celebrity is created by the media. The hero was a big man; the celebrity is a big name.” The next time you watch TV or a movie, think about that person, and then look to someone behind the “big name.” If we didn’t have heroes this would be a world full of hopeless people. I think of a hero as a person who befriends you, even though you are not the “best” person in the world and then they do something in your life that changes how you see things and actually want to be a better person because of this.
Heroes can come in all shape and forms and whether you know it or not, you ” ve probably been influenced by a hero. It takes a great person (they may be an ordinary person, but no heroic act is ordinary) with a big heart and a humble heart to be a hero. “A man can be a hero if he is a scientist, or a soldier, or a drug addict, or a disc jockey, or a crummy mediocre politician. A man can be a hero because he suffers and despairs; or because he thinks logically and analytically; or because he is “sensitive;” or because he is cruel.
Wealth establishes a man as a hero, and so does poverty. Virtually any circumstance in a man’s life will make him a hero to some group of people and has a mythic rendering in the culture-in literature, art, theater, or the daily newspapers.” And what about the firefighters of 9/11 who sacrificed their lives for others and the soldiers protecting our freedom from terror. Where are their Mercedes Benz’s and decked out Cadillac’s? Why is it that people who pretend to be heroes make millions and people who put their lives in danger everyday and also sacrifice themselves for others make just enough to get by sometimes? It is questions like these that make you wonder what society is thinking a lot of the time.