Category Archives: Heroes

Female heroes discovered!

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I had some interesting musings collide together which I think are worth writing about. Together they make for an interesting landscape, and a platform to promote a couple of Female Heroes right in the family! The other day I was thinking about female heroes, Matt Langdon’s Hero Workshop, and chats I had with with some family members.

Matt at HeroWorkshop reminds me that a hero is not some mythical being, but heroes live and breathe sitting or standing right next to me. Too often we just do not see them for what they are. Unfortunately, many of us have been programmed to replace true heroes with movie stars, gangsters, or band members.

I was talking with a family member who is trying hard to make positive changes in people’s lives by giving of herself, and her time. She meets and speaks with people who are lost and deserted due to personal circumstance. She is in there doing what she can, showing them there can be a better future if they choose it. This is a noble undertaking. This is awesome stuff. What a great thing to do to, and a great way to help others!

A second family member is a Case Manager for a very specialized group of people. She works in their life removing obstacles for them, and helping with problems they can not manage on their own. I am sure most of the people she helps appreciate what she does for them.

To some people, her career, or life choice may sound pretty ho-hum. And my writing about it just some yada, yada, as I fill in another paragraph. From my viewpoint, she has become a true hero! When I think of all the people she must have helped over the years…wow! I sure am proud of her, and now very mindful of what she is doing for others, making their life a little better, and helping their life go forward, which sometimes is no easy task!

I am as lazy as many others in the hero department. I throw a few bucks into the Salvation Army bucket at Christmas, and slip a few dollars to a homeless person now and then. I also donate some of my income to a few formal organizations. But as far as using myself as a tool to directly help make the lives of others better? I would do a better job herding cats across the prairie.

Everyone who chooses to take on a role of service to others is someone to be admired. Anyone can look good, or say something witty in front of a camera for a few seconds. For a few hundred dollars we can all look a little like the rich and famous for a few hours. I say a real hero in comparison is someone who climbs out of bed everyday, go to a job, or calling that not many people could do at all, let alone be any good at, and does what they can to make lives of others better.

At the end of the day these modern day female heroes know they are making a real difference in the lives of people who really need their help. Too many of us coming into direct contact with someone who really could use our help, we normally look away and pretend we do not see them. What these woman do almost every day serves to remind me, how big of a difference one person makes when they choose to. I sure am proud of these two women, and what they are doing! I hope others are too, and they let them know about it also.

I hope when you think about someone you know who chooses to serve others, you think about how they make important changes in people’s lives. What they do is not a dream job, and is probably heartbreaking and thankless at times. Yet they still get out of bed and do it the next day. Maybe you are one of these folks? If you are doing a service for others, be very proud, for you are a hero too!

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Female heroes are missing?

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I do not know if you are aware of it or not, but Matt Langdon has a blog, the Hero Workshop in which he actively looks for everyday heroes in everyday life. I have been following Matt’s blog for a few weeks now. Recently, Matt wrote about female heroes, and why are there not more of them in print. I thought that was a good question!

I thought of a few women right off the top of my head that may fit the hero category, Golda Meir came to my mind. Golda Meir served as Prime Minister of Israel from 1969 until 1974. Golda Meir took Israel though some tough times, and some serious conflict. She was a lady of iron, with a will few men could match in her position. While I know little about here other than what was on the news, she did she thought had to be done.

Another stateswoman Margaret Thatcher served as the British Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990 was another tough lady. Margaret Thatcher took Britain through the then recent war with Northern Ireland, and led the engagement to retake the Falkland Islands. Once again, I thought few men could match her resolve and determination to do what she thought needed to be done.

Maybe I was not looking in the right places for female heroes…. I was looking for women who fit my idea of a hero, people I admire such as Ali, Eddie Rickenbacker and the like. It became apparent that female heroes do not play in the same ballpark. Marion Jones, is certainly showing heroic qualities of late, I hope she continues to inspire, but there have to be many more female heroes out there.

As I was listening to music, Gloria Estefan , and Mellissa Etheridge came to mind. They are close, but not quite fitting my definition of a female hero. This was getting tough, I could see what the problem is. Female heroes do not get the publicity, and recognition their male counterparts do. Being a man, I was hard pressed to come up with a female hero.

I moved my thoughts closer to home, and it came to me who real female heroes are! Real female heroes are my Wife, Daughters, Mother, Mother in law, Aunts, and Sister’s In Law. Real female heroes are all the women in my life who climb out of bed every day and make sure my world stays stable and everything flows [mostly] the way it should. They are the women who do most of the housework, out of the house work, and clean up after the rest of us!

If it were up to men to remember holidays, birthdays, weddings, and other important dates, well, it just would not happen. Women take care of these dates, and orchestrate these events mostly flawlessly. All we men do is show up and be sociable for a few hours. Even NASA found that shuttle and other missions run better with a woman on the crew. Before women were part of the space shuttle crews, men were men and when the shuttle would land after a mission, they looked and smelled like it, as did the shuttle itself. Having a women on board changes all that, just a woman’s being there!

My search for female heroes is over. For real female heroes, I do not need to turn on the television and watch a Wonder Woman rerun to see a female hero. I only need to look as far as the women in my life. These women often without thanks raised me, fed me, cleaned me, and cleaned up after me. They gave me birthday parties, fixed my hurts, and stood by as I did boy, and later man things in my life. Women keep the calendar of life. They mange the world in gentle measures, rarely receiving credit for their effort!

I now understand why I had difficulty finding real female heroes in my world. Why was it not apparent before, these female heroes? Like so many things seemingly hidden from view, all I had to do was take my blinders off, and there they are, always standing right next to me!

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My Heroes, And The Hero You Are Too

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My heroes have always been cowboys…have you ever heard the song? This is true to some extent, there is a lot to be admired in cowboy life. In a number off famous cowboy stories and most cowboy movies, one or more Cowboy’s are heroes. The Cowboy life just does not transfer over to the rest of our society at times. One of my lifelong real world heroes is an ex world champion boxer – Mr. Mohammed Ali. Mr Ali has taught me a lot about life, being a man, and being human. Another real world person, a man named Eddie Rickenbacker is also a long time hero of mine, he was flying Ace and race car driver.

I think everyone should find and have a hero in their life. Heroes are important for those times when things get tough, no one else is around, or you feel the world is conspiring against you. At these times having a hero means having a friend in your corner. Someone who maybe has not been through what you are going through, but you have a fairly good idea how they would handle the situation if they were. They can also act as someone you do not want to disappoint if there is no one in your life at the moment.

By knowing how my hero would probably handle a situation makes it easier not to be indecisive. Knowing what my heroes would probably do, I can handle whatever obstacle is in my path at the moment. My heroes have also unknowingly kept me out of situations that at the time seemed a lot of fun. They may have been fun at the time but they would have been a bad life choice. Of course it is easier to see, having stepped away form the situation and observing it from a detached perspective at a later time.

Having heroes in my life at first was hard, especially when I came to understand that my heroes are also human beings just like I am. They are flesh and blood, and they sometimes make decisions that I have a hard time understanding. They may have made poor decisions, or they have done something I could not imagine they would do or say. It must be tough being someones hero. Being a hero means that so many people look up to you for direction, guidance, and hope. The weight of knowing people always expect you to do the right thing must be a heavy weight to bear.

What my heroes did that many of us are never put in a position to do, is my hero’s have made courageous life altering decisions. A few times choices they were presented with sometimes had terrible options. These men were forced to make the best choice they could live with, not a choice they may have really wanted. There was no easy button for them to to press. Sometimes there was no one they could talk to about what was the right choice, or there was no time to contemplate. They made the best choice they could under the circumstances.

Eddie Rickenbacker was in a terrible accident at one point in his life. There was a fire, and flames were crawling towards him, threatening to burn him alive. He wrote he had two terrible choices – be severely burned and maybe be rescued, or inhale the flames as they reached him, and hope that inhaling the flames killed him quickly. Mohammed Ali found himself at odds with his belief system and the country he loved. Mr Ali’s choices at one time were to become a soldier and fight in a war that he did not support, or believe in, or go to prison. Going to prison also meant giving up his right to the World Champion boxing title he had recently won. May our own life decisions never be that serious.

At times in our lives many of us take on the role of heroes too. Perhaps not at the level of our own biggest and baddest heroes, we are usually heroes in a lesser although equally important role. Perhaps someone who is having a rough spot in their life thinks we can help them with some good direction. Maybe you are a hero some child looks up to because they see you as larger than life? Heroes are people just like us, whether they are in business, sports, singers, or spouses. Although we would like to think our heroes are perfect, just like us, they make mistakes too.

I salute, you the hero you are, for you are somone’s hero, even though you may never know it.

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