When I was a kid, my 6th grade English teacher gave me the kind of writing assignment that I think everyone gets at one time or another: write a brief essay about your personal hero and explain why with specific details. I couldn’t come up with anyone suitable. I wanted to write about something real. I imagined myself much too mature at 12 to be writing “My hero is Commander Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight and pilot in the Rebel Alliance because he destroyed the dreaded Death Star at Yavin IV and redeemed the evil Darth Vader with the power of Love and faith in The Force.” But, nothing in my own life seemed worthy of being called heroic. It all seemed too small. Heroes, to me, were queens or generals, leaders or presidents, someone who changed everything for everyone, not my dad teaching me trigonometry. I’m sure our teacher told us it did not have to be someone world-famous, but I didn’t buy it. In the end, I chose Abraham Lincoln and wrote an uninspired and impersonal essay.
Even as an adult, I don’t know how to choose a hero. I find that “who is your hero” is not the most important question. If I were a junior high school teacher (and we are all very grateful that I am not), my version of this assignment would be to write about someone who has made a difference in your life. “My hero,” is a singular and daunting title. But, we all can name persons who have made our lives better. I don’t know what I would have picked as a 6th grader, but today I could write something about my grandparents. I could write about my friend from The Internet who was always around when I felt alone. Or I could write about the math teacher who first taught me computer programming, or the Classics professor who assured me I was good enough for graduate school. I could write several different essays about my Spouse who paid my bills when I quit graduate school, or the nurse friend that came from out of town for a visit and wound up taking care of our kids when my whole family had norovirus. These people may not get epic tales of heroism, but they did things that made my life today possible.
Many of our stories, whether fictional or historical, center on heroes doing great deeds: uniting kingdoms, defeating evil empires, uplifting the oppressed, or destroying malicious jewelry. These kinds of stories are exciting and inspiring. But these heroic narratives also depend upon the actions of hundreds of other people who are not the president or the protagonist. Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation ordering enslaved persons to be made free, but it did not happen by magic. Thousands of men and women worked to spread the word and to enact it. Some of those people have heroic stories told about them, but many of them, especially the enslaved persons who freed each other, do not get the George Lucas or Steven Spielberg treatment. In my Star Wars example, our hero Luke Skywalker cannot defeat the empire alone. To get to that point required many other people, and not just the princess or her smuggler boyfriend, but the aunt and uncle who took him in, pilots who don’t even get last names, workers, mechanics, technicians of all kinds, doctors, medics, and animal trainers. Even fantasy heroes with lightsabers and magic powers need people to help get through the crisis.
With everything going on in this country and in the world, I have seen people asking how to get through this, how to keep from being overwhelmed. The way to do that to stop trying to be a hero and just be a person. There is this idea that one vote, one dollar, one average person is not enough to make any difference. One person may not be enough to change the world, but one person can change someone else’s day, or even someone’s life. That means something, not to the whole world, but to that person and their world.
You don’t need to fix the whole world yourself. Focus on what you can do in your own corner of the world, to make things a little better. Find one or two things that you know about and you care about, and do those things. The smaller they are and the more local, the better. I set up regular donations to the local refugee center and I joined the PTA to keep informed and make sure the other kids at school have what they need. I never imagined I would be a PTA parent, but fighting Darth Vader wasn’t an option. For every person, what they can do will be different. Choose something where you get to see results. Volunteer at the library. You can directly see the people you are helping. Or, make sure the food pantry at your church or temple stays full. You will see that someone who needs food is getting it. Be a crossing guard or a translator. Get to know your neighbors and help the ones who are struggling. You know what your skills are and what knowledge and resources you have. Use them. There are so many organizations who need one more person. You can’t do everything, but you can do something. Focus on that one thing. Doing something is how we get through this, and how we keep from drowning in the vastness of it.
