Essay#3: Our Identity is What Makes Us All Heroes in the Making

When I was little, I wanted to be a superhero. Not the ones that had x-ray vision, super speed, or the ability of flight. I wanted to be the heroes that didn’t need any superpowers to change the world. They were the ones that ignored the fear, the odd, and still succeeded. I called them modern day heroes. I wanted to be a modern day hero . However, the way they were made out to be, it  was like their identity, who they were, was so extraordinary, weird, and perfect. It was like they were this special individual that normal people could never hope to achieve.

I felt that I would never have a chance to identify with the heroes. There are many heroes,  great leaders, and all around great people that we can think of ,but what makes a person a true hero? There are common theme that show that a true hero is one that is very generous, helpful, kind, loving, etc. But these characteristics are what we all posses, We are always good the same way we can have our bad days. How we identify people as heroes, is by how they possess all the qualities that we associate as only good people or the strong contain. Which is why some heroes are so relatable. And what makes them a hero is that in their worst moment with all of these negative qualities, they still attempt to do what is right for our community.

Andrew Solomon did a Ted talk on “How the worst moments in our lives make us who we are” and he said that “You need to take the traumas and make them part of who you've come to be, and you need to fold the worst events of your life into a narrative of triumph, evincing a better self in response to things that hurt.”  We learn from experience. We learn what it means kind, treating people the way we want to be treated, because we know what it feels when people are  mean, We know what it means to be greedy because we have experienced some form of generosity. That’s just who we are, and how we make our world better.

So if we know all these characteristics from experiencing the good and bad, and acting on them ourselves, but we define most heroes as people who only do good things,   then can someone really identify to be truly a perfect hero? Where does our true selves fit on that black and white scale when we are born as grey areas. Nobody is born a hero. when you look at a newborn baby you don't know if they will be future killer, or savior. And that is what makes it so incredible, and a little bit scary at the same time. A nobody has the ability to be the hero as much as the hero can have the ability to be a nobody. Heroes, the ones that we call the best of the best of society don't always dress in a cape with white light surrounding them. They are, most of the time, regular normal looking people. Which makes it hard distinguish which is which, and explains why the heroes can be mistaken as the nobodies. Going back to Andrew Solomon’s ted talk, he said  Identity involves entering a community to draw strength from that community, and to give strength there too. It involves substituting "and" for "but" -- not "I am here but I have cancer," but rather, "I have cancer and I am here." From that, I can see that we can all be heroes, because we all have have the ability to address the shortcomings that makes us who we are, and still do good. And if we all realize that, I truly believe we can make the world better in our own hero ways.