There goes my hero...

A hero can have many definitions for different people. My Macbook has a dictionary application that states that a hero is “a person, typically a man, who is admired or idealized by a wide range of people for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities.” Personally, I am neutral about this definition. I believe that a hero is someone who can be appreciated by a single person, and not by a ‘wide range of people’. A hero can be someone who impacts you personally: a person who you look up to for their strength, attitude, and accomplishments. To me, a hero is anyone you can look up to when you really need a boost.

I also do not agree that a hero should ‘usually be a man.’ I think a hero can be a woman as well. With my description of a hero, I say that anyone with a good impact on someone’s life can be her hero. This could mean a sister or an aunt or a good female friend as well. The definition of a hero should not just be confined to men, since women can have significantly great impacts on people’s lives. I think that many people don’t regard women as ‘heroes’ in the sense of novels and epics like in that list because, when people think of these heroes, the think of people diving into battles with fierce monsters, swords and shields at their sides. While this can be a hero, it’s only one interpretation.

I believe that heroes don’t need to have a particular set range of conduct. There’s no rubric to becoming a hero. Last year in English class we wrote an essay on someone we considered a hero to us. I wrote an essay on Matthew Shepard, the boy who was beaten and left to die just outside Laramie, WY in 1998. I wrote that he was my hero specifically because it was never something he set out to be. He became a hero, not for his actions like many heroes in books, but by his symbol and the repercussions of his death. He helped spark a great movement against hate crimes towards LGBTQ people, which I connect to personally. This proves that a hero doesn’t have to have a rubric or a specific code of conduct. A hero doesn’t even have to know they are a hero.

Humans do need heroes. Human nature tends to make people want to have someone to look up to. Looking back on my life, I’ve always had someone I looked up to. This person was my hero. Heroes are people who you can look up to, so they do good things, usually for the good of others.

Bertolt Brecht said “Unhappy the land that needs heroes.” If someone or a group of people is in need of a hero, this means that something is wrong that a hero could fix for them. If people are without a hero, they have no one to look up to, and no one to instill hope into their hearts.