Running into danger when another is at risk has nothing to do with being a hero. Rather, it has everything to do with being a human.

Maybe being a hero is deciding to step up on behalf of another at great expense to oneself because that is the essence our humanity. And if such actions are heroic, maybe they are not heroic because we decided to embrace that essence. Rather, maybe they’re heroic because we chose not to reject it.

True heroes know that the most heroic thing about being a hero is not letting anyone else know that you are one.

I play the scenario of the hero out in my head, and in doing so I revel at the thought of boldly abating the darkness and saving the day. Yet, until I face the searing scourge of battle and am thickly bloodied by it, I will not understand that to imagine oneself as a hero without being laden with the scars of battle is fiction only. And if I am sufficiently brave, maybe someday I will turn that fiction to fact.

My life expended in the service of my life becomes something so terribly narrow that the value of my existence outside of my existence has no value. But if I dare to make myself a servant to others, I have made myself of value to everyone.

I can readily see the tyrants that stand all around me. But what I have a hard time seeing is the hero that resides within me. And I have effectively determined whether I will succeed or fail simply by choosing which of these two I will focus on.