Mark Tabola

I grew up and saw a lot of things about "heroes."  Usually they were fictional characters in fictional stories, and they were champions of justice, truth, and righteousness.  As I have aged, I've realized that the real world also has people who are viewed as being heroes.  Sports figures, business figures, politicians, religious leaders, even local community people have all earned the title of "Hero" from people.  But it happens, and people like having others to look up to.

Over the last 20 years, I feel like "heroes" have had a change in their image and expectations.  It seems that a lot of "heroes" are being touted as being such, despite glaring flaws.  Or, they are held as "heroes" in spite of their downfalls.  What's really getting me is how people have put real life people up to be "perfect heroes," and forget that they are screw-ups like the rest of us.  I don't know anyone who is perfect.  

One of the secrets I learned from listening to business people at speaking engagements over16 years has been that nobody is perfect.  But all of those people also said that they worked hard to cut out all of the undesirable bits that they could, and strive for excellence.  And if they couldn't cut the undesirable bits out, they worked hard to handle them so they became minimal or were eliminated.   It was always that pursuit, and the lessons learned, those were the items that were the "meat and potatoes" of their speeches.  The trials and the lessons learned.

The other reality to this is that no matter how hard we try, things will go wrong.  We cannot control enough of everything to ensure that the outcomes are what we want them to be.  So "history" occurs, and there's not always anything we can do about it.  And we have to deal with that...   And I've been taught and learned that the right way to handle these times is to let our integrity and character show the truth to everyone, so that those who are trying to use it as a weapon against us find out that their entire reason for their dislike is based upon nothing.

With all of this in mind, I now find that I look at others much differently.  I still find those who are "heroes" out in our communities, and they are "heroes" despite or in spite of their issues going on.  And that should be a lesson to learn and adopt into our lives, every day.  To go do the right things anyways.  Not doing the right things means we all lose together.  Whereas if more of us can step out of what we're dealing with and do some good, then everyone benefits.  It reminds me of an old saying: A rising tide lifts all boats.  And we all could use some lifting up from time to time!