Re-thinking out priorities.
First they take everything from you…but that’s only the first part. Then they leave you with something entirely different that you want no part of either. How do they come up with this stuff? You couldn’t make it up…it might even be funny if it wasn’t so terrible. Maybe that’s what makes it so funny.
How about the old saying,”you can’t pick your family, but you can pick…”
The next line should be…”your heroes”.
Talking with a young father the other day, he remarked about a wonderful documentary he had seen about a fellow no one ever heard of and the exemplary life this man lived. The young father wished his own two children would live such exemplary lives. He thought this fellow should be one of their heroes.
What is a hero? What does one have to do to become a hero? Must you save your battalion, must you marry the home coming queen, must you conquer Wall Street, or can you simply live a life of caring, honesty, high morality, and even be barely scraping by financially?
Rich does not make you good. Marrying up doesn’t mean anything…living a life which is justified and honest…now we are on the right track.
Teaching your kids that money is most important, Instagram followers are better, and being an influencer on Facebook is best, are simply half-truths. These things left alone will carve the guts out of a productive life. What makes us who we are, and justifiably heroic, are the failures we experience and the remedies we devise to overcome them.
In the ongoing debate over climate change/global warming, there are still many of us who think the entire thing is an international hoax to weaken the United States, maybe by asking us to spend so much money we will have none left for the things we really need. These same folks are referring to more advanced weaponry, greater corporate control, reliance on fossil fuel, and a host of other nefarious expenditures. Sad but true.
If there is a chance that the earth is in danger shouldn’t we fix it? Perhaps it is better to err on the side of caution. If we see a wrong should we not try to right it?
Whistle blowers are heroes. They put their reputation, sometimes even their lives in danger (E. Snowden) for what they believe in. To many Americans, Snowden is a traitor. He leaked government documents to foreign sources. When the truth came out, Snowden went to his superiors and asked for help. They gave him cover-ups. Frustrated, Snowden chose another route. Right or wrong the fact that he acted in the public interest no one can deny. His methods are certainly up for review, but not his motives. He had no financial gain in mind. (His new memoir will probably change all that.)
The 45th President of the United States said John McCain was not a hero because he was captured! Cesar Chavez stood up to the unfair labor practices of the agro conglomerates and was vilified for it.
Every night on TV fast food barkers extol the value of their fried plastic food to millions and are thought to be greatly helping the domestic economy. This does not, or perhaps it does, include the enormous medical bills run up by unhealthy Americans.
On the other hand, the makers of the Luna protein bars, after hearing about the unequal pay for the men’s and women’s soccer teams, made up the difference by paying each member of the women’s team an additional 31,000 dollars. {BTW, the men’s team could not carry the women’s gym bags. The men missed the world cup altogether, while the woman won the world cup and still the men are paid more…does that make any sense at all?)
The women are now International heroes for their courage to stand up for their rights, while the men get all the attention for beating a sub-Sahara team whose budget would not be equal to one of our player’s yearly salary.
Luna did not publicize this expenditure, simply paid it.
There are single mothers in this country that no one has ever, or will ever hear about who raise their children, keep their homes clean, put food on the table, keep the kids healthy, work a full time job, and just for good measure take night classes to better themselves…Heroes one and all.
We need to rethink who our heroes are, and more importantly why they are our heroes. What are we looking for that we don’t have? What has made us more comfortable living in the fantasy world of heroes and super heroes as opposed to living in the here and now, however difficult it may be?
We need to teach our children about the values of hard work and owning up to problems. To being equal to yourself in all situations. Heroes aren’t always the biggest and the wealthiest, sometimes they are just like you and me….
Change is born in reality. Struggle is what makes it happen……
