[2022-02-05] Heroes
This week's newsletter by Atomic Habits author James Clear included this quote from Barrett Brooks, a writer on business, technology and climate change:
Here’s the thing about your heroes: You have to know about them to look up to them. The candidate pool is 100% limited by your exposure. That’s why so many kids look up to athletes, I think. They haven’t been exposed to enough other people to look up to them.
I don't remember having heroes that I looked up to when I was a child. As Brooks suggests, this is probably because I wasn't exposed to people who would inspire admiration and didn't know enough about their stories.
As an adult, I've had an opportunity to learn more about certain people. My greatest hero is Terry Fox. That he ran a marathon (26 miles or 42 kilometres) every day for 143 days to raise money for cancer research is awe-inspiring. That he did so on a prosthetic leg is unbelievable. That he did so through pain and knowing that his cancer would return is the highest act of selflessness.
I am inspired by people like Terry Fox who do hard things, who put others before themselves, who blaze a trail for those who come after them. Additional heroes who come to mind are Rick Hansen, who propelled his wheelchair more than 40,000 kilometres in 34 countries to prove the potential of people with disabilities and raise money for spinal cord research; John McCrae, who served in the South African War (Boer War) and the First World War and wrote the poem "In Flanders Fields"; Nellie McClung and her colleagues in the Famous Five, who fought to have women recognized as persons who could be appointed to the Senate of Canada; and Viola Desmond, who challenged segregation in Nova Scotia in the 1940s and became the first Canadian woman to be featured by herself on the face of a banknote.
Heroes can be flawed. Sometimes they are judged more harshly by later generations when held up against the standards of today.
Heroes can be silent. As a friend expressed to me recently, "Heroes don't have to be well known or superstars—they can reside in our hearts and minds." They include people who care for others out of love, not obligation.
Heroes can be brave, sharing their story when it would be safer to keep silent. But in expressing their truth, they make it easier for others like them to live authentically and openly.
The Barrett Brooks quote in James Clear's newsletter continues:
Who haven’t I been exposed to that would inspire me if I knew they existed or knew the details of their lives? And how could I learn about those people?
It is so much easier today to learn of heroes whose stories are public. But what of the silent heroes—the people who may be heroes to us but unknown to most others?
Who are your heroes?
