Over the holidays I was watching ESPN while helping my wife clean the house and two stories came on back to back the first was about Tiger Woods and the second was about Tim Tebow. Listening to these stories and the contrast of hero vs. fallen hero got me to thinking. I wasn’t raised to make sports figures my heroes. I actually wasn’t raised to make anyone a hero. While I don’t think I was ever told this I believe my parents believed heroes were a form of idol worship. As I’ve become an independent adult and now a parent I have to think about the pros and cons of heroes.

What is a Hero?

A Hero is a roll model, someone who has achieved at a super human level. They have stretched themselves beyond what a normal person does and chosen to “bleed from their eyeballs -Gary Vaynerchuck” to achieve their goals. A hero provides an example to work towards and it’s really valuable to have those examples in life so that you know you can reach your goals too. A hero usually excels in a specific area of life.

What is our temptation?

We as humans are tempted to put that hero who excels at an area of life on a pedestal and celebrate the “human being” as a Super human, which they are not. We most commonly do this with sports figures and they almost universally fail.

So I don’t know what to tell my kids. No heroes means they have to get old enough to decide I’m wrong and find their own but at least they’ll know humans are flawed by then on the other hand they may miss a bunch of opportunity to better themselves to be like a hero they would have selected.

Here’s my plea:

I need a hero

I’m holding out for a hero ’till the end of the night – Or whenever I find someone who fits my definition.

He’s gotta be strong – Strong Moral beliefs, Strong Character, Strong Attitude, Strong enough to hold new resolutions when needed
And he’s gotta be fast – Take Action, Make Course Corrections, Quickly admit when he’s made a mistake, Fast to know and take strong new resolutions

And he’s gotta be fresh from the fight – My hero will not quit the fight, there is not fresh from it because you are always in the middle of it.

I need a hero

I’m holding out for a hero ’till the morning light – I’ll hold on as long as it takes.

He’s gotta be sure – Make a decision and stick to it. Know what you want and go for it. Risk getting laughed at, stepped on and kicked in the stomach because you know what you want and you go for it.
And he’s gotta be soon – I’m sorry I have no idea what this means and therefore can’t assign any meaning to it.

And he’s gotta be larger than life – Yes my hero probably does need to be larger than life, but let me give a better definition below.

I do want to hold someone up as a hero to my kids and I want that person to meet the following definition.

I want that person to do something they love, I want them to be a strong family person – No divorces and they need to obviously care about their kids, I want them to believe in giving charity and helping others, I want them to believe in God ( I don’t care what they call God), I want them to take good physical care of themselves. I want them to be honest and have integrity. I want them to be kind to and care about others. Most of all I want them to understand that I’m not the only one who expects this of the folks who achieve hero status. All humans know that nobody is perfect and we forgive easily but it sure would be nice to see someone who is in a position to be seen as a hero at least try to meet these standards.

What do you think about heroes? Do you have any? What standards do you hold for them? Do you think women might make better heroes than men?

Photo By Loren Javier on Flickr
Kevin Metzger is father to Haley, Abby and Issac and husband to Melanie. He is a Business Systems Architect and writes on tech and business topics at MetzgerBusiness.com. Kevin also writes MySpellingSucks.com for which he was awarded the 2009 East Cobber Father of the year. Recently Kevin has started TheDADvocateProject.com where he is looking for participation from dads to help write a book about this current generation of dads. Come by and fill out the DADvocate survey.